1920-04-22

ANNIVERSARY OF BATTLE OF ST.


[Stage Direction]
After prayers had been read by Mr. Speaker, hon. membrs of the House stood for some minutes in silent prayer, in accordance with the intimation previously given by the Right Hon.* Sir George Foster (Acting Prime Minister), "in commemoration of the battle of St. Julien, in sacred memory of the Canadian troops who died for their country, and in honour of the bravery and heroism displayed by the soldiers of the Dominion."

[Stage Direction]
Bill No. 71, respecting the Bell Telephone Company of Canada.-iHon. S. C. Mewburn.
Bill No. 72, to incorporate the Northwest Route, Limited.-Mr. Boys.

[Stage Direction]
(Questions answered orally are indicated by asterisks.)
[Mr. Mackenzie Kins. 1

Mr. DESAULNIERS:: 1.	Was the Government of Canada ever approached during- the years 1910, 1911 and 1912 by Mr. Daniel D. Hennick, of Logan, Ontario, with a view to the purchase of patents for a gun invented by the aforesaid Hennick?
2.	Did the said Hennick during the year 1912 proceed to Germany for the purpose of selling to the government of that country the above-mentioned patents?
3.	Were the said patents purchased by the Imperial German Government?
4.	Is it true the said Daniel D. Hennick is about to return to his home in Canada after having spent the past eight years in Germany ?


Rt. Hon. Mr. SIFTON:: 1,	2, 3, and 4. No information.


CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAYS-ACQUISITION OF ELECTRIC SYSTEMS.
Mr. DEOHENE :: 1.	When have the national railways of Canada acquired the electric system of the Toronto Eastern railway?
2.	By what authorization have they acquired said line?
3.	On what conditions?
4.	What are the assets and liabilities of said line?
5.	What are its gross and net receipts?
6.	What is its total length?
7.	What amount is required to complete it?


Hon. Mr. REID:: 1.	The Toronto Eastern railway was acquired by the Canadian Northern Railway Company on September 27, 1918.
2.	By Order in Council dated September 23, 1918.
3.	The conditions were, that the Canadian Northern Railway Company would take over the railway at actual cost.
4.	There are no outstanding liabilities of this road, and the length of the line is approximately 30 miles, which have been surveyed and the right of way largely acquired. There are 19.6 miles actually under construction, of which 14.5 miles track completed and 5.1 miles graded.
5.	The line is not yet in operation and therefore there could be no gross earnings.
6.	Answered by No. 4.
7.	Construction work not being proceeded with at present and no estimate available.


Mr. DEOHENE:: 1.	When have the National Railways of Canada acquired the electric system of the Toronto Suburban railway?
2.	By what authorization have they acquired said line?
3.	On what conditions?
4.	What are its assets and liabilities?
5.	What are its gross and net receipts?

. Hon. Mr. REID:
1.	The Toronto Suburban railway was acquired by the Canadian Northern Railway Company on September 27, 1918.
2.	By Order in Council dated September 23, 1918.
3.	The conditions were that the Canadian Northern Railway Company would take over the railway at actual cost.
4.	This company owns and operates 64 miles of electric railway, running from Toronto to Guelph and Toronto to Wood-bridge, with 10.45 miles of lines within the city of Toronto. The value of its fixed property and current assets as of December 31, 1919, were $3,446,786.86, and its outstanding liabilities, including bonded indebtedness as of December 31, 1919 were $3,638,770.14.
5.	The gross earnings for 1919 were $394,-S14. Operating expenses $352,472.29, net earnings $42,041.71.


CANADIAN MERCANTILE MARINE.
Mr. PARDEE:: 1.	With what agents or brokers was the insurance upon the Canadian Mercantile Marine Fleet placed?
2.	Did the Department of Marine and Fisheries effect the insurance or was it effected by the Government Railways?
3.	Was competition asked for in insuring these boats and, if so, what individuals or firms were requested to compete?
4.	What rate of premium was paid?
5.	Was the premium paid in Canadian, Sterling or United States currency?
Hon. Mr. BAL.LANTYNE:
1.	The answer to this question is same as that given to question in connection with Company and answered by Sir George Foster, page 1158, unrevised Hansard, April 12, 1920.
2.	Answered	by	No.	1.3.	Answered	by	No.	1.4.	Answered	by	No.	15.	Answered	by	No	1.


THE ARTHUR YOUNG COMPANY.
[Stage Direction]
'Mr. GAUVREAU:
1.	For how long is it the Intention of the Government to retain the services of the Arthur Young Company in connection with the re-classification of the Civil Service?
2.	Is it the intention of the Government to continue the employment of the Arthur Young Company for some other purpose when classification is completed?
3.	If so, what is it intended to employ them for?
Rt, Hon. Mr. SIFTON:
1. For the balance of the present month of April.
2.	No, so far as is known at the present time.
3.	Answered by No. 2.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. CHISHOLM':
1.	Are officers in Headquarters Staff, Department of Militia and Defence, entitled to be provided with a saddle horse and a groom or batman in addition to their ordinary pay and allowances?
2.	What officers were supplied with saddle horses and grooms since August, 1914?
3.	What was the number of horses kept for this purpose each year, and what was the initial cost of such horses and the amount for maintenance each year?
4.	How many grooms and batmen were employed in the service of officers of the Headquarters Staff, and what was the total outlay each year for pay and allowances for these men?
5.	What extra allowance did an officer receive when he had not a horse and groom or a batman assigned to him?
Hon. Mr. GUTHRIE:: 1.	No. Staff officers are not, as they are paid consolidated rates of pay.
2.	A few army remounts were maintained in Ottawa for periods during the war, for funerals, Engineer Services, Military Police, transport and other duties. Officers who so desired, were permitted to exercise these horses.
3.	The number carried varied from time to time. When the Engineer Training .Depot was'in operation, the total number was 80. During the period that tne Signalling Training Depot was in operation, the number was 52. After that date, the average number was 13, until February, 1920, when all were disposed of.
The stable has been closed, and the horses distributed to other parts of the country or sold.
4.	None. Soldiers employed on regular duties are permitted, outside of duty hours, to render services to officers, for which they are paid privately by the officers concerned.
5.	Staff officers receiving consolidated rates of pay-none.


QUESTION PASSED AS ORDER FOR RETURN.
Mr. STEVENS:: What items are included in the following figures appearing in " Statement of Public Debt, and the Revenue and Expenditure of the Dominion of Canada, as by Returns furnished to the Finance Department to the night of the 31st March, 1920," said statement being signed by J. C. Saunders, Assistant Deputy Minister of Finance: (a) assets, other investment, $402,190,403.06 ; (b) assets, miscellaneous and banking accounts, $652,664,799.59 ; (c) revenue miscellaneous, $106,381,672.18?


DOMINION FRANCHISE ACT.
[Stage Direction]
The House resumed from April 13 consideration in committee of Bill No. 12, respecting the election of members of the House of Commons and the electoral franchise.-Hon. Mr. Guthrie.
The CHAIRMAN:: When this Bill was
last considered in committee, all of the clauses and schedules had been read and considered. Many of them had been adopted, but clauses 2, 19, 20, 22, 24, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 37, 53, 55, 63, 76, 77, 78 and 100. The amendment proposed by the Acting Solicitor General to clause 77 and several forms in the schedules to the Bill had been allowed to stand for further consideration. The interpretation clause after being considered the second time was allowed to stand until the other clauses had been disposed of. We have not reached clause 19. Shall the clause carry?


Mr. PROULX:: Were any amendments
made to this clause?


Mr. GUTHRIE:: Not to clause 19. If that clause is carried formally, it will have to stand until a resolution is introduced with the sanction of His Excellency, in the usual way. It is for that reason that that part of the clause is printed in italics. It will have to stand, anyway, pending provision being made for payment of the salary. I suppose we might settle the amount of the salary.


Mr. JACOBS:: Did I understand the minister to say that the salary has not been provided for?


Hugh Guthrie: The salary of the Chief Electoral Officer, as such, has not yet been fixed. Of course his salary as Chief Parliamentary Counsel, has been fixed. My hon. friend will see that the portion of this section which provides for the salary, and which is printed in italics, will have to stand so that the question of salary may, with the sanction of His Excellency, be submitted to the House by way of resolution. But if the clause is formally passed now the resolution can be introduced and laid on the Table.


Edmond Proulx: What is his salary as Parliamentary Counsel?


Hugh Guthrie: I understand it is $5,000.


Mr. MICHAUD:: What was the salary of the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery?


Hugh Guthrie: I think it ran from $3,000 to $3,600; I am not sure of the exact amount.


Edmond Proulx: A deputy minister receives $6,000. If we add $1,000 to the salary of the Parliamentary Counsel, then as Chief Electoral Officer he would be on the same footing as a deputy minister. I think that would be fair.


Hugh Guthrie: My hon. friend will see that we have in some respects raised the standard, having practically provided that the Chief Electoral Officer shall occupy a position analagous to that of a Superior Court judge. My own view is that a salary of $2,000 or $2,500 a year should be paid to him as Chief Electoral Officer. I realize that his chief duties will be performed prior to and during a general election and for one year or perhaps fifteen months thereafter. There can be no question that in the intervening years the duties of the office will not be exceedingly heavy. I have no doubt that there will be a certain number of by-elections, and in the immediate future we are face to face with the probability of applications from the various provinces in regard to prohibition; and this Act is applicable to elections under the Canada Temperance Act as well as for elections to this House. So for the next few years I think we may take it for granted that the duties of the office will be fairly onerous, but after the prohibition contests during the next few years I think the chief duties performed by this officer will be confined mainly to two months prior to a general election and for a year or fifteen months thereafter, leaving a period of two or three years when his duties will be comparatively light-that of merely looking after the voters' lists and any by-elections.


Edmond Proulx: My hon. friend spoke of putting the Chief Electoral Officer on the same footing as a Superior Court judge. The salary of such a judge is $7,000, and I would have no objection to adding $2,000 to the salary of the Parliamentary Counsel and so placing him on that footing.


Hugh Guthrie: That is one way of regarding the salary of a Superior Court judge; but in our province, as my hon. friend probably knows, the salary is $8,000, the Dominion Government paying $7,000 and the Ontario Government $1,000. The salaries of the judiciary are always calculated on the net emolument, which therefore in the case of our Ontario judges is $8,000. We might split the difference and make it $2,500 here.


Samuel William Jacobs: What was the salary of the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery?


Hugh Guthrie: It was somewhere between $3,000 and $3,600; I am not sure of the exact figure.


Samuel William Jacobs: Is it proposed to economize in view of the appointment of a new official?


Hugh Guthrie: I see that the Parliamentary Counsel's salary was raised either last year or the year before and is now $6,000.


Samuel William Jacobs: If the Parliamentary Counsel is going to do work exactly similar to that which has heretofore been performed by the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery, I do not see why he should not receive the very same salary as the official who is now retiring.


Hugh Guthrie: There may be something to be said in favour of that suggestion. Of course, we provide here for an assistant, who will have to be an expert. There is now as a matter of fact an assistant -clerk of the Crown in -Chancery. I think my own original suggestion is not a bad one, to increase the Parliamentary Counsel's salary to the extent of $2,500 per annum in respect of the extra duties he will have to perform as Chief Electoral Officer. That seems to me to be a reasonably fair arrangement, and I think he himself would be satisfied with it.


Georges Henri Boivin: Mr. Guthrie moves that the further consideration of clause 19 be postponed.


Hugh Guthrie: My idea is that the section should be adopted subject to the clause in italics. Perhaps the whole section must stand; I do not know.


Georges Henri Boivin: May is very clear on this point. At p-age 458 he lays down this principle:
If the charge created by a Bill is a subsidiary feature, resulting from the provisions it contains, the royal recommendation and preliminary committee are not needed before the introduction of the Bill, but before the clauses and provisions creating such charges can be considered by a committee on the Bill, a resolution sanctioning them must be passed by a committee of the whole House appointed upon the recommendations of the Crown, and must be agreed to by the House.


Hugh Guthrie: We will let that clause stand, then.


Mr. FIELDING:: Apart from the question of the amount of salary, I would suggest that the payment of salary from two sources and in two pieoes i-s rather an objectionable proceeding. I am not raising
any question .-as to the amount, but I think the official -should receive a definite salary, and that it should be set forth at one time and in one place so there can be no question what that salary is.


Hugh Guthrie: The clause will stand, anyway.
Clause stands.
On section 20-Assistant Chief Electoral Officer.	.


Hugh Guthrie: A slight amendment is necessary to this section in line 37. I move that after the words "Governor General in Council" the following words be added: "upon the -recommendation of the Chief Electoral Officer."


Air. LAPOINTE:: Who is actually the assistant to the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery?


Hugh Guthrie: Air. Oastonguay.


Ernest Lapointe: Is it the intention to appoint him to this position of Assistant Chief Electoral Officer?


Hugh Guthrie: If I had the power of appointment, I would unhesitatingly say yes. I think he is a very well-informed official in regard to election matters, and undoubtedly his -services in connection with the preparation of this Act have been very valuable indeed. However, it was thought that under the scheme adopted by this Act putting general control in the hands of the Chief Electoral Officer, that the officer who is to assist him should be a man appointed on the Chief Electoral Officer's recommendation. The appointment is really made by the Governor in Council, but upon the recommendation of the Chief Electoral Officer. There are to be only two permanent officials besides himself, and it was thought better results would follow jf he was allowed to make his own recommendation as to who should be those assistants.
Mr. LAPOINTE. While not objecting to the amendment, may I suggest the advisability of having one of these officers conversant with the French language? Perhaps the Chief Electoral Officer will have that in mind when he makes his recommendation to the Governor in Council.


Hugh Guthrie: That point has also
been considered; I quite see the propriety of the suggestion. The present Parliamentary Counsel happens to be English-speaking. In future he might be French-speak-

ing; so we thought it better not to mention that in the section.


Edmond Proulx: Why depart from the
principle of having recommendations as to appointments made by the Civil Service Commission? Officers of all departments, including those of thg House of Commons, are under the Civil Service Commission.
Mr.GUTHRIE: I do not know about the officers of the House of Commons; but that question too was considered. The judgment was that as the House of Commons in appointing the Chief Electoral Officer and giving him general charge of elections, he should select his own staff, taking the matter away from the Civil Service Commission. We do not want any charge of political partisanship to be levelled at that board; we thought we would remove that temptation.


Pius Michaud: Is that the first departure from the principle of having all appointments made by the Civil Service Commission?


Hugh Guthrie: Oh, I could not tell my hon. friend that. It is the only one that I know of.


Mr. OOPP:: The minister says that the
rule is being departed from in order to keep the Civil Service Commission above suspicion of partisanship. It might well be argued that if the Civil Service Commission is to be of any use at all, it should select the officials who are to have charge of elections in order that partisanship may be avoided.


Hugh Guthrie: I realize that there are many niceties in this Bill which will require the very greatest attention, and we must have an expert to administer the Act. It is wise, therefore, to provide that the man charged with the administration of the Act shall have the right to select his assistants. Under the machinery vided by the Act, great difficulty might m encountered if the men on the job were not familiar with the law and were not highly trained and highly technical men. For that reason I insist that the power of appointing the officials to carry it out should be in the hands of the man who is responsible. A bad appointment of chief clerk might upset a whole general election.


Mr. COPP:: I quite agree with my hon.
friend. As a matter of fact, that principle should apply to the appointment of technical ' officers in all other departments as well. I am not wedded to or in synipati*,

with the selecting of officers for the different departments by the Civil Service Commission. But if it is a good rule for one department it must be a good rule for -another. If any partisanship is apt to be shown it should be particularly guarded against in the appointment of election officials.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Hugh Guthrie: At the suggestion of the Auditor General, who says that he does not want to decide the question involved, I move that clause 20 he further amende]! by striking out of line 45, page 9 of the Bill, the words:	"that such salary is reasonable . and,"


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Hugh Guthrie: It is provided in subsection 2 that the Assistant Chief Electoral Officer shall rank in the classification of the Civil Service of Canada as a head clerk. Now, a head clerk is paid at the rate of $2,400 to $2,880, whereas a chief clerk is paid from $3,000 to $3,600. The duties of the Assistant Chief Electoral Officer are sufficiently important to command the higher salary, and this official should rank as chief clerk. I therefore move that clause 20 be further amended by substituting for the *word "head " in the fourth line on page 10, the word " chief."


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Samuel William Jacobs: The Chief Electoral Officer will be attending to his duties as Parliamentary Counsel between elections. What will the chief clerk be doing?


Hugh Guthrie: I think that the chief
clerk will be fully occupied during the next-three years, but after the next general election and after our temperance referendums have been taken in the various provinces, I do not think he will be fully occupied. He has duties to perform in the way of looking after lists that are returned from time to time; he will have the duty of conducting by-elections. But he will be fully employed only for a period of two or three months before a general election and about fifteen months thereafter. If after three or four years' experience it is found that he is not fully occupied, we might make some change, but I honestly think that having regard to the work that we are going to impose upon him and the nature of it, we should see that his rank and salary are properly fixed at this time.

Mr. VIE A': Does this increase his salary or leave it as it is?


Hugh Guthrie: I do not know what he is getting at present. If he is a head clerk, his salary is from $2,400 to $2,800. A chief clerk receives from $3,000 to $3,600.
IMr. COPP: The minister says that the Assistant Chief Electoral Officer will be very busy during the next two or three years. What will be his duties under this Act during that time?


Hugh Guthrie: Well, I assume that requests will come in from the provinces- some have already come, I think-for re-ferendums, and in those provinces practically the whole work of a general election will have to be done under the machinery provided by this Act. Then, we have the ordinary number of by-elections. In many respects the Act is a new experience, so that with these matters before him and with the limited staff in his office, he is going to have his hands full. Then, the Parliamentary term expires some time in 1923, and he will be faced with a general election.


Mr. VIEN:: Not till then?


Hugh Guthrie: I mean that by statute it expires. I think we may expect a general election some time about July, 1923.
Section, as amended, agreed to.
On section 22-writs to be addressed to returning officers:


William Stevens Fielding: Has the minister any amendment to propose to this clause?


Hugh Guthrie: No.


William Stevens Fielding: I am sorry, because this is a matter in respect of which I ventured to offer a suggestion at an earlier stage which I thought was conspicuously fair and reasonable. The minister has repeatedly stated-and I assume he stated it correctly-that the desire of the Government in enacting this measure is to make it as far as possible a non-partisan measure, and to that end they have in a number of instances provided that things shall be done which the Government themselves shall not do. That is a very commendable purpose. I want to call attention to the fact that one of the greatest powers of unduly influencing an election is in appointing a returning officer. As the law stands now, as it has been under all governments, because I am not contending that there is any change-
97	<


Hugh Guthrie: I do not want to interrupt my hon. friend, but my idea was- and I think I mentioned it to some of my hon. friends opposite-that we might pass over some of these contentious clauses until a later sitting. I understand some amendments are going to be moved and threshed out, and probably the committee will be divided upon them, so that I think it would be better if these clauses were allowed to stand until a subsequent date.


William Stevens Fielding: I have no objection to letting them stand until a more convenient date; I have an amendment to move to this clause.
Section 22 stands.
On section 24-election clerk:


Hugh Guthrie: It has been suggested since this clause was previously before the House that w'e should insert another qualification to the effect that the election clerk shall be a qualified voteT. It seems that in the past it has been the practice for returning officers to appoint their election clerks, very often from a class of minors. Quite frequently I believe an election clerk has been a junior clerk in the office of the returning officer, or a junior member of his family. In the -case of death or removal of the returning officer, the election clerk, under certain circumstances, becomes returning officer, and he might be called upon to deliver the casting vote in case of a tie. Therefore, one official who has gone over the Bill, has suggested that we should insert a clause that the election clerk should be a qualified voter, and I have no objection to such a clause being inserted if the committee thinks that proper. I, therefore, move that after the words "election clerk" in the first line of clause 24, the words "who shall be a qualified voter," be inserted.


William Stevens Fielding: Does the hon. member mean a qualified voter in that district?


Hugh Guthrie: Yes. I move that the words "in the electoral district" also be added.


Ernest Lapointe: Why not put that
amendment in clause 23?


Hugh Guthrie: Clause 23 was carried be- ' fore.


Ernest Lapointe: But clause 23 would be the proper place.


Hugh Guthrie: It would be more appropriate there. I move that we return to the



consideration of clause 23 in order to amend it in the manner suggested by my hon. friend (Mr. Lapointe).


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
On clause 23-duty on receipt of writ:
Hugh Guthrie: I move that the words "election clerk" in paragraph (c) be stricken out, and that at the end of the paragraph be inserted the following words: "an election clerk who shall be a qualified elector in the electoral district," so that the paragraph will read:
Appoint under his hand and seal in form C an election clerk who shall be a qualified elector in the electoral district.


Samuel William Jacobs: That is to say, his name will have to appear on the voters' list?


Hugh Guthrie: Yes.


Mr. McMASTER:: Not necessarily under this Bill because, unless the Bill is changed, people may be qualified to vote and come on the day of the election and swear that they are qualified to vote. This is not a desirable provision.


Hugh Guthrie: It is a matter of such minor consequence that I would not have troubled the committee with it had the Chief Electoral Officer not called my attention to it.


Andrew Ross McMaster: I suppose a woman could act as an election clerk?


Hugh Guthrie: Yes.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to, and section as amended agreed to.
On clause 24-election clerk:
Georges Henri Boivin: Is it the pleasure of the committee that Mr. Guthrie have leave to withdraw the amendment he moved to this clause?


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Yes.
Amendment withdrawn.


[Stage Direction]
Section agreed to.
On clause 28-polling divisons.
Mr. DENIS:: Has this clause been under consideration already?


Hugh Guthrie: We read it over and it was partially discussed, and then it was allowed to stand.


Arthur Bliss Copp: Are there any amendments to it?


Hugh Guthrie: I have none.


Andrew Ross McMaster: I see in this clause a provision whereby provincial or municipal subdivisions may be adopted. I think these municipal or provincial subdivisions should be adopted as polling divisions unless there is some very clear convenience to the contrary. I would suggest to the minister the advisability of changing the clause to read that the electoral officer, or whoever is in charge of dividing a district into polling divisions, should adopt the provincial or municipal boundaries, unless he thinks it advisable to do otherwise.


Mr. GRIESBACH:: In the West these boundaries are changed frequently before an election.


Hugh Guthrie: That is one of the objections to adopting the suggestion of my hon. friend (Mr. McM-aster); but this clause has been taken from our former section No. 37. In the old Act, permission was given only to adopt provincial divisions and we have added the words "or municipal" for the sake of convenience if the returning officer sees fit to adopt the municipal divisions. I think the clause is pretty well drawn as it stands, and I would not advise any change.
Mr.' DENIS: What about a case where there are no divisions in existence, as in many parishes of Quebec where there are no particular electoral divisions?


Hugh Guthrie: The first duty of a returning officer is to divide his district into polling divisions, as the clause says, "having Tegard to the probable number of electors within a division," and the Chief Electoral Officer is given power to "direct, number or otherwise designate each polling division." The first duty of the returning officer is to survey the district and divide it into polling divisions, and for that purpose he may take the ordinary municipal or provincial divisions. That in practice is what he does in nine eases out of ten, but a.s was pointed out a moment ago, these polling divisions change very frequently, particularly in the West, and in fact in all the bigger cities of the East. The boundaries of the polling divisions in my own city, for instance, have been changed three times 'in the last five years. The returning officer has the power to utilize the present divisions if he sees fit. He is bound to provide the necessary polling divisions.


Jean-Joseph Denis: This section provides that the Chief Electoral Office may number "or otherwise designate" each polling division.

Would it not be preferable to say that the division shall in every case be numbered? I think numbering is the best possible designation you could have.
Mr. -GUTHRIE: We are simply following the law that has been in force for forty years. I do not exactly know why these words were used in the first place, but there must have been some reason. Perhaps in some cases it is impossible to number the polls; a poll may be referred to, for instance, as the Bell River poll, or- the White Horse poll, and such like, as the voters may know them better by that designation.


Mr. DOUGLAS (Strathcona):: In some districts the general practice has been to number the poll and give some description of it, such as No. 200, Bell Crossing, so that it will be better identified by the people in the neighbourhood. I think that is why these words were put in.


Mr. MIDDLEBRO:: I think it was intended to cover municipalities where there are five or six polling divisions divided up from A to M, and from N to Z. Then the different divisions could be identified by designating them 6A or 6B, and so on.


Mr. DEMERS:: Has the Returning Officer to decide whether a certain division is urban or rural?


Hugh Guthrie: The Chief Electoral Officer has the final decision in that case.


Marie Joseph Demers: Is there a conflict between section 28 and subsection 6 of section 32? Is a time limit fixed within which the Chief Electoral Officer will have to decide whether a division is urban or rural?


Hugh Guthrie: No time limit is fixed. The Chief Electoral Officer is empowered to decide, "upon the best available evidence, for all the purposes of this Act, whether any place is a city, town, or incorporated village, and whether it has a population of over one thousand persons."


Marie Joseph Demers: He should decide before the returning officer is required to fix the polling divisions.


Hugh Guthrie: The Chief Electoral Officer sends his instructions, and he will be guided in his determination by the definitions of urban and rural polling divisions as given in section 2.


Mr. ARCHAMBAULT:: But why should not a time limit be fixed?


Hugh Guthrie: I do not see that anything would be gained by it.
97i


Joseph Archambault: At the time he
sends his instructions, why should he not decide whether a division is urban or rural?
Mr. GUTHRIEi: I assume he has to decide it. I do not see any object in fixing a time.


Marie Joseph Demers: Although paragraph (v)' defines what an urban polling division is, by subsection 6 of section 32 the Chief Electoral Officer is empowered "to decide upon the best available evidence, for all the purposes of this Act, whether any place is a city, town or incorporated village and whether it has a population of over one thousand persons." So the matter is not settled simply by referring to paragraph (v) of section 2. I think a time limit should be fixed by which the Chief Electrical Officer shall give his decision whether the division is , urban or rural, so that the returning officer can go ahead and carry out the provisions of section 28.


Joseph Archambault: What is the objection to fixing a time limit?


Hugh Guthrie: I have no objection, but ,1 do not see that there is anything to be gained. I think it is the duty of the Chief Electoral Officer, when he sends out his instructions, to notify the returning officer whether the division is urban or rural.


Joseph Archambault: There is nothing in this Bill that obliges him to do so.


Hugh Guthrie: The Bill says he shall
decide the question.
, Mr. ARCHAMBAULT: But not by a certain time.


Hugh Guthrie: The question will arise in a case of this kind: In the laying out of an electoral district, the returning officer will undoubtedly come across some hamlets where there may or may not be a thousand persons, where the place may not actually be an incorporated village. Telegrams at once begin to come in "Is this a rural polling division?" The Chief Electoral Officer is empowered to decide these questions. I am told that in' the last election the Dominion Returning Ofiicer, Mr. O'Connor, was flooded with telegrams upon all kinds of questions. He did not know whether he had power to decide them all, but he assumed the power in many instances. We are empowering the Chief Electoral Officer to decide these questions, and his decision is final.


Joseph Archambault: That is all right, but some date should be fixed. Why not

provide that he should make his decisions -when he is sending out his instructions? That would avoid such a flood of telegrams as the minister has mentioned.


Hugh Guthrie: He would not be asked to decide except in an odd case here and there. There is no obligation on him to decide the question until it arises, and when it does arise, he disposes of it.


Mr. TRAHAN:: The question whether a division is urban or rural is important for upon the decision depends the preparation of the voters' lists. Two different methods of preparing lists are provided in this Bill, one for urban, and a different method for rural divisions. Suppose that the Chief Electoral Officer makes his decision, under subsection 6 of section .32, only two days before polling day.. What about the preparation of the lists in that case? I believe that a time limit should be fixed because the question whether a division is urban or rural is vital in the preparation of the lists.


Hugh Guthrie: I think we had better discuss that when we come to section 32. Personally, I see no difficulty, but I will bear in mind what my hon. friend says.


Ernest Lapointe: Under section 28 the returning officer has power to designate each polling division and fix upon a suitable polling station therein. In previous elections there have been complaints that polling stations were provided at a considerable distance from a body of voters, who, in consequence, could not register their votes. Would it not be possible to compel the returning officer to provide suitable stations in the electoral districts, so that every voter will have a chance to register his vote.


Hugh Guthrie: The word "suitable" is the one we have used.


Ernest Lapointe: Well, a returning officer who is not over-scrupulous might interpret that to mean, suitable for his own purposes.


Hugh Guthrie: What language does my hon. friend suggest?


Ernest Lapointe: I think we might provide that polling stations should be at distances of not more than so many miles from the most remote voter.


Hugh Guthrie: I do not think it would be practicable to having a polling division at any stated distance from each remote
 '
voter. The difficulty of taking the vote would be insurmountable.


Ernest Lapointe: Well then, suppose we say so many miles from the centre?


Hugh Guthrie: I have never heard of any difficulty arising under the section as it now is. Difficulties may have occurred, but I have never heard of them. However, if my hon. friend will submit what he considers an effective provision I shall be glad to consider it.


Ernest Lapointe: I know that at the last election the opponent of my hon. friend from Edmonton suggested that many of the voters could not register their votes because the polling station was too remote from their residences.


Mr. MOLLOY:: Some years ago the results of an election were affected by the action of a returning officer who, the previous night, moved a polling station, with the locus of which the electors were thoroughly acquainted, to a place of which they knew nothing. The consequence was that the next morning when they turned up at the old place there was no polling station.


Hugh Guthrie: That must have been in the old days.


Andrew Ross McMaster: The words "suitable polling station" might very easily be interpreted to mean a convenient room or suitf of rooms suitable for the purpose of holding a poll therein. Perhaps the following words: "suitable polling station convenient for the voters," or some words of that import, might be added to show that the suitableness has reference not merely to the condition but to the location of the polling station.


Hugh Guthrie: Suppose we use the
words, "suitable and as nearly central as possible"?


Ernest Lapointe: That would be better.


William Antrobus Griesbach: That would not overcome the difficulty in the West, for if you said that the polling division should be as central as possible, people resident in outlying districts would be more remote than ever.	.


Hugh Guthrie: That is right; the hon. member's contention did not occur to me.


Mr. HALLADAY:: A difficulty arises ''in the West that may not exist in the East. In the newer constituencies it is not always convenient to have the polling station in the most central place. In the election

before last one poll which should have been held.in the constituency of Red Deer was held in the constituency of Medicine Hat because all the people drove to the Cope-ville post office for mail. All roads lead to this particular spot and it was not practicable to have the poll in Red Deer. I think therefore that it would be unwise to provide that the poll should be in the centre of the polling district.


Hugh Guthrie: I think it would be well to leave the language as it is.


Mr. ROSS:: I suggest that the polling
station should be in the vicinity of the greatest number of electors.


Hugh Guthrie: Such a provision would still leave room for discretion.


James Hamilton Ross: We know that elections were won or lost in 1917 by polls being placed on the confines of constituencies, necessitating journeys of thirty or forty miles on the part of electors.


Hugh Guthrie: I never heard of it.


Ernest Lapointe: You have Some things yet to learn.


Jean-Joseph Denis: As the section stands now
it is entirely within the discretion of the returning officer to choose, " if convenient for the occasion " subdivisions already existing. I think it would be better to amend the sections by changing the language in lines 24 and 25 to read " he shall adopt, whenever convenient for the occasion". This while it would empower the returning officer to reject polling divisions already existing, would give him a direction to choose such polling division unless there were some special reason why he should not. As the section now stands it is absolutely optional on his part; he "may" adopt the existing polling stations, " if convenient for the occasion ".
I contend that whenever it is possible to use the existing divisions they should be used, because the people are accustomed "to them. In cities and towns the electors are accustomed to vote in certain divisions, and a chaotic condition might arise if a returning officer could change these divisions at will, as he has the right to do under the section as it stands. While he should not be bound to choose the old polling division, I think the provision should make it compulsory for him to do so whenever possible.


Hugh Guthrie: I dp not approve of that suggestion. I should not like to depart from the plan we have adopted in the past. I have never heard of any inconvenience
having been experienced, and in practice the plan works out satisfactorily. The proper and grammatical language is the language in which the section f? now drawn.
It is permissiDle, whereas the provision my hon. friend suggests would be imperative.


Jean-Joseph Denis: By no means; it would be
merely making it compulsory for him to do something whenever it was practicable although it would not bind him.


Andrew Ross McMaster: I move that after the word "therein" in line 24, the following %words be added:
Located at a place most convenient to the greatest number of electors.


William Antrobus Griesbach: In that polling subdivision.


Andrew Ross McMaster: That goes without saying.


Hugh Guthrie: Who is going to decide that?


Andrew Ross McMaster: It is a direction either to the Chief Electoral Officer, or the officer who, under him, has the resignation of the polling divisions.


Hugh Guthrie: It is the returning officer who has the designation.


Andrew Ross McMaster: Well, the returning officer.


Hugh Guthrie: Very well, let us put in "in the opinion of the returning officer." Because we might find that ninety-nine persons were convenienced at one point and one hundred persons at another point, and we may have a bad election arising out of it. We have got to be careful in this language. I think it should 'be stated here who has the decision as to that point of convenience.


Howard Hadden Halladay: The returning officer is given a certain time to prepare these polls. Take my own constituency, which is 134 by 82 miles. It is physically impossible for any man to select a poll in the centre of every polling subdivision, and physically impossible for any human being to place that poll at the most convenient point in every polling division. It is a matter of going out and getting this work done. It must be done to-day, or to-morrow, and the returning officer has not the time and he cannot get the help to do it in these large western constituencies. It is all right in the East where you know where the people are living, but in the West a new district is opened up to-day and probably a

thousand people will move into that district inside of thirty days. You do not know where the centre is, and you cannot arrive at it without visiting the place. I say that by this provision you are putting the returning officer in wrong; he will be unable to live up to the law which you are applying to him.


Hugh Guthrie: I can understand the
suggestion of my hon. friend from Brome, and I think if these words were inserted it would improve the section. That is, insert after the word "therein" the words "located at a place which, in the opinion of the returning officer is the most convenient to the greatest number of electors."


Henry Herbert Stevens: Let me point out that in line 22 above you have almost that very same language. You have "having regard to the probable number of electors within a division he deems convenient."


Hugh Guthrie: That is as to the number he will make.


Henry Herbert Stevens: It refers to the location of a suitable polling station. Now you are going to add to that the words "as convenient" again. It seems to me it is totally unnecessary. The language in its present form is about as well as it can be drafted.


Mr. CURRIE:: I think the clause should stand as it is.


Hugh Guthrie: I really think it is as well that way.


John Allister Currie: I do not see that anything is gained by changing the clause and adding these last-minute amendments. It has not been shown to the committee that any complaint has been made because of what has happened in previous elections. The law has stood that way, I think, for the last fifteen or twenty years. I have been in Parliament for a few years and have never heard any complaint with respect to this clause. I would suggest that if any amendments are proposed we should consider them very carefully. In my opinion, the clause as it stands covers the situation perfectly, and it would be better for us to leave it as it is. If we made any change, we might do something which might turn out very unsatisfactory even for those who are urging the amendment.


Marie Joseph Demers: I do not think the
language "or as the Chief Electoral Officer may direct" was in the Act twenty years ago.


Hugh Guthrie: That is as to fixing the number not the location. If the Chief Electoral Officer says there should be more polling subdivisions he has the right to say so. But that is as to the number; we are talking of the location of the polls in the division. The question is which is the most convenient place for the poll. I do not believe that two hundred members sitting here can decide that point; I think the best we can do is to allow the returning officer to make the decision. While the language of the amendment of my hon. friend from Brome is modified by the words which I have suggested, I do not think it affects the meaning of the clause as it stands. I would not object to it, but I do think, gentlemen, it is a dangerous thing to insert words unless there is a real reason for it. I am not aware that any great injustice or inconvenience has ever arisen under the provision as it stands. It is stated that such has arisen, but if it did it arose under the language that we propose to adopt now. If the returning officer did wrong he should have been punished for it; and if he does wrong now, he certainly, under this Bill, can be punished. Just to say the poll will be at the most convenient place is not much more than to say that the returning officer may fix upon a suitable polling station, it would not be suitable unless it is to a large extent convenient. I would very much prefer not to change the section unless there is a pretty strong reason for it. If there is let it go.


Ernest Lapointe: Of course it will depend on who is the man who will be appointed returning officer; we are giving him wide discretion and many arbitrary powers.
I believe that we should discuss immediately clause 22, which concerns the appointment of the returning officer, and which my hon. friend is asking to postpone. As the clause stands in the Bill, anybody could be appointed by the Governor General in Council; there is no qualification mentioned in it. My hon. friend from Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding), when this clause first came up for consideration, suggested that some responsible officers should foe appointed; that the Governor General in Council should make the appointment from a certain class of officials. If we were sure that the returning officer would be an impartial official, perhaps our objections to many other clauses of the Bill would not be so great as they are. I would suggest that this matter of the appointment of the returning officer should be settled now, be-

fore proceeding with the other clauses of the Bill.


Hugh Guthrie: I have not the slightest objection to that, only I intimated to several hon. members opposite, I think the leader of the Opposition was one, that the seriously contested clauses would not be gone on -with immediately. | However I am quite prepared, if it is the view of the committee, to return to the consideration of clause 22 and settle it.


Ernest Lapointe: It has an important bearing on the other clauses.


Hugh Guthrie: Then I would be very glad to return to its consideration.


Georges Henri Boivin: Mr. Guthrie moves that the consideration of clause 28 and the proposed amendment of 'Mr. McMaster thereto be now postponed. Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Georges Henri Boivin: Mr. Guthrie moves that the committee now return to the consideration of clause 22. Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Georges Henri Boivin: Shall clause 22 carry?


William Stevens Fielding: When, this clause came up before I was asked by the Acting Solicitor General to defer its consideration until another stage. I called attention to the fact that at an early period of the discussion the minister had intimated the desire of the Government that this Bill should, as far as possible, be of a non-partisan character. I ventured to add that the power to appoint the returning officer is one of the cases in which a government may exercise an unfair power. The law in that respect has been in force for many years under all governments, therefore I am not assuming for a moment that there is anything peculiar in what the hon. gentleman is now proposing. But I must point out that as the law stands to-day it is quite possible-and if it is necessary the evidence can be given that such has happened- that a person may be chosen to perform the duty of a returning officer chiefly because he is known to be a partisan. I offered the suggestion that the Government should themselves submit to some restraining influence. In my own province of Nova Scotia the Government have not a free hand; they must appoint the sheriff to be the returning officer.


John Allister Currie: Who appoints the sheriff?


William Stevens Fielding: The local government; but he is appointed permanently in the same manner as a judge of the court, and there is the same probability of his being fair and independent as in the case of a judge appointed by any government at Ottawa.


John Allister Currie: But more inclined to his own party than any returning officer.


William Stevens Fielding: What does my hon.
friend say? I want to meet his criticism.
I want to say therefore that the Government in the province of Nova Scotia has not a free hand; it is obliged to appoint the sheriff, unless there be some difficulty of an exceptional character. In the province of Quebec the Government has not a free hand; it has the appointing power, but it must appoint the officer from a certain prescribed list; he must be the sheriff, the registrar or the prothonotary.
Now, my proposal is that the Government shall still be the appointing power- I quite realize that that must be-but that the Government shall not be free to go out in the street and select any partisan they please for returning officer, but that they must select for that position some one already holding a public office, and therefore a person of responsibility. If I confine myself only to the sheriff, the registrar and the prothonotary, as in the case of Quebec and Nova Scotia, it might be fairly said that those are all provincial officers and it is not fair to confine the Government to them. My proposal is:
That clause 22 he amended by inserting as subclause 2 of the said clause the following words:
(2) The returning officer shall be a person holding one of the following public offices: sheriff, registrar of deeds, chief clerk of the council of a city, incorporated town or municipality, secretary or treasurer, or secretary-treasurer, of a city, incorporated town or municipality, postmaster of a city or incorporated town, collector of customs. If none of the aforementioned officials are in the electoral district for which a returning officer is required, or if those authorized to act in such capacity are prevented from doing so, or refuse to act, or if from any cause the services of such officials are not available for the purpose, the Governor General in Council may appoint a competent person residing in the electoral district as returning officer.
We have mentioned here a group composed of both Dominion officials and provincial officials. Naturally they will be of all shades of political opinion, but the fact that they are already holding public offices, that they have established positions in the community, no matter what may be

the colour of their po'itical opinions, is a guarantee that any person chosen from among them is a person of responsibility and may be expected to discharge his duties in a non-partisan manner. I submit that as a fair and reasonable amendment, and as entirely consistent with the purposes which the Government stated through my hon. friend (Mr. Guthrie) when he introduced this Bill.


Mr. H. A. MACKIE:: The hon. gentleman has pointed out that the Electoral Act of Quebec and also the Electoral Act of Nova Scotia contain very wise provisions to remove every possibility of partisanship. I hold in my hand the Electoral Act of Alberta, which contains exactly the same provision as is proposed in this Bill. So that whereas Quebec may have an ideal law on that subject, certainly the province of Alberta stands under the same condemnation as does the present Bill at the hands of the hon. gentleman. If the sheriff is to be appointed we would be confronted with this difficulty in Edmonton; we would have only one sheriff to look after five or six ridings. The officials named by the hon. gentleman are those appointed in towns and cities by reason very largely of their political qualifications. Take the secretary-treasurer or even the clerk of the city council of Edmonton-those two men are appointed on account of their political talent. Would it be contended by the hon. gentleman (Mr. Fielding) that the appointment of either of these gentlemen would be the appointment of a competent person free from political partisanship? If a partisan is to be appointed, I claim the right to myself to appoint him or to suggest him for the appointment. That he may differ from me in politics may be a reason why I should think he is incompetent for the appointment. On failure to secure a returning officer from the list given by the hon. gentleman, we are told that the Governor in 'Council shall appoint a competent person. How will that be determined?


William Stevens Fielding: As it is now.


Henry Arthur Mackie: Then perhaps my opinion should be sought, and if it were, I certainly should not appoint one who might be injurious to me from a political point of view. And my hon. friend, if he were called upon to give an opinion as to who would be a competent person to act as returning officer, would not recommend a person whom he knows to be absolutely opposed to him politically. I submit that the section as it stands should be passed.


Mr. LEVI THOMSON:: I fail to see how the proposed amendment will improve matters. A number of officials are named therein. Well, I do not know whether my hon. friend (Mr. Fielding) is more fortunate than I am, but I think I could find amongst our officials in the West some of the rankest partisans. It seems to me that the safest way is to leave the responsibility for appointment on the Government or on some government official whom we can trust to appoint non-partisan persons who will act fairly, for I do not think it makes any difference whether a man is opposed to me as long as he is fair. We cannot ignore the fact that there is a growing feeling in the country for absolute fairness in election contests, and our people are insisting that the Government must be absolutely fair in such matters. I think the practice that obtains now has been found fairly satisfactory, and where that is the case I think we should not be too anxious to make a change. Therefore I feel disposed to vote against the amendment, although I am just as anxious as my hon. friend from Shelburne and Queen's to see that every precaution is taken to have elections conducted in an absolutely fair way. But, as it is, I think we are more certain of accomplishing that purpose than by limiting the number of men from whom the selection may be made for returning officers.


William Stevens Fielding: My hon. friend (Mr. Thomson) states the object he wants to be sure of is that elections shall be conducted with absolute fairness, and I agree with him fully. But he says that he prefers to see the present practice continued as he does not think any harm has been done so far. I think he is mistaken, for I am sure many of us can testify that harm has been done. My hon. friend from Edmonton (Mr. H. A. Mackie) says, if I understand him correctly, that he should be consulted as to who are to be the returning officers in his district. That is just the thing I, want to prevent. I do not want to be consulted as to who is to be the returning officer in my district. I want the Government to have a free hand but I want them to select a responsible officer known to the community. I care not whether he is Grit or Tory, provided he is known to hold a public office and is responsible to the Government and to public opinion. I am willing to trust him if he is such a man; in nine cases out of ten he will do the square thing. But under

this Bill the Government is permitted to ignore all these responsible officers and to go out in the street and select a man whose only qualification is that he will serve partisan ends. That is what we are doing; that is what we have done. I want to stop that.


Levi Thomson: Appointments of officials in the past have been more partisan than they are at present. Under the old system no one could be appointed a government official whose name was not selected by members of the local patronage committee. The hon. member is asking that we select returning officers from that class; from among men whose appointments *were. characterized by partisanship in the .-xtreme. I say that is the last class of men who should receive appointments as returning officers. Let us have a free field. Let the Government select the returning officers; let us put the whole responsibility on them.


Mr. DAVIDSON:: I assume that the judgment of the hon. member (Mr. Fielding) is influenced by conditions as he has known them to exist in Nova Scotia. He says in the first place that iniquities have been practised by the Government in the past through the appointment of partisan officials as returning officers. Now, my hon. friend was a candidate in Nova Scotia in the last election. In that election the returning officers were appointed by the Governor in Council, just as is provided in this clause. I ask the hon. gentleman whether he has any complaint to make at}out.the degree of fairness shown by the Governor in Council in the appointment of returning officers at the last election?


William Stevens Fielding: Yes.


Avard Longley Davidson: Conservative governments, under Liberal governments, up to 1883. In 1883, Mr. Fielding and his party came into power.
, Some hon. MEMBERS: Order.


Avard Longley Davidson: I would like to have the point of order stated.


William Stevens Fielding: Go on.


Avard Longley Davidson: I was not referring to the member for Shelburne and Queen's, .because he was not the member for Shelburne and Queen's at that time; he was a member of the Nova Scotia legislature. So that I think I was correct in so designating him.
Well, the law was as I explained it. But in accordance''with the views which my hon. friend has expressed here to-day, the yery first legislative measure that he ever voted for in a deliberative assembly was to change that law so as to take away the yight of the judges to have anything to say about the appointments of sheriffs and to give to the Lieutenant-Governor in Council a broad field, an absolutely free hand. Mr. Chairman, what do you think :of the consistency of a gentleman who will seriously make such a proposal as has been made here to-day?


Ernest Lapointe: Seriously !


Avard Longley Davidson: Seriously, I say. We all admire the jokes that are told in the House by the member for North Cape .Breton (Mr. McKenzie); nobody appreciates 'them more than I do. One of the best stories that he tells in his own inimitable way is that of a farmer who had a pig in a pen and who one day found that the animal had disappeared. It was nowhere ,to be seen, but the owner did find that a ydndow had been knocked out-a window one foot by two feet and a half. The farmer looked around and said: "I have lost my pig, but I have got his measure." It seems to me that we have certainly got the measure of the hon. member (Mr. Fielding) by the action he has taken in this matter.


Ernest Lapointe: That is the best part of my hon. friend's speech.


Avard Longley Davidson: I wish to refer to another instance, which, I think, is within the knowledge of hon. gentlemen, of the absolute impartiality of my hon. friend (Mr. Fielding) in election matters; and I refer to the attitude that he assumed towards officials of the Dominion Government in Nova Scotia. Hon. gentlemen will remember that when his party came into power in Nova IMr. Davidson.]
Scotia, the Dominion Government was in the hands of the Liberal-Conservative party, and for that reason, many officials of the Dominion Government in Nova Scotia were friendly towards the Liberal-Conservative party. My hon. friend, as premier of that province, in the interest of fair play, fairness and generosity, put through a Bill to disfranchise every official of the Dominion Government, simply because they were opposed to him politically. That law remained in force until the Liberal-Conservative Government went out of office and a Liberal Government came into power, when the law was changed and Dominion officials in Nova Scotia were allowed to vote in provincial elections.
Mr. McM'ASTER: I have listened with a very great deal of care and attention-


Mr. BUREAU:: And with great effort.


Andrew Ross McMaster: to the eloquent, temperate,-


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Wise.


Andrew Ross McMaster: Wise, courteous and sober reply of the hon. member for Annapolis (Mr. Davidson) to the suggestion made by. the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding). I was particularly struck with the good taste and accuracy of his agricultural allusions. I note a tendency on the part of young men belonging to the Old Guard of the Conservative party which perhaps has not altogether disappeared in this country, although under temporary oblivion, to make great efforts, especially when they come -from Wo^a Scotia, to endeavour to shift the ground of debate, and when we are discussing matters on the broad Dominion field, to endeavour to take ground, not on the Dominion, but on that very precious comer of it, the province of Nova Scotia. I understand that the reason for the acidity, if not the acerbity of their remarks is due to the fact that the province of Nova Scotia has for a great number of years been well governed by the Liberal party. Bringing back the debate from a rather unnecessary attack by the somewhat junior member for Annapolis upon a very much revered and respected member of this House,- to a consideration of the matter which lies before us, I wish to answer the argument adduced in his usual courteous manner by the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. L. Thomson). His argument is this: In the past men have been appointed to office generally because they belonged to one or other of the political parties. That is true, and in regard to all

offices of real importance, that is true today. My hon. friend (Mr. L. Thomson) says that these men appointed in this way are more liable to he partisans. We all want to get away from partisanship. That is the proposal.
Some hon. MEMERS: Oh, oh.


Andrew Ross McMaster: My hon. friends laugh. Perhaps the reason why they laugh is that they are not sincere in their attitude. But I can say for those who sit on this side of the House, certainly for those for whom I am privileged to speak, if not for those sitting lower down in the benches on this side, that their desire is to remove partisanship. The argument of my hon. friend is that these people who have been appointed in times past by provincial or Dominion Governments will not forget their partisanship. I think my learned and hon. friend is wrong; I have enough faith in the soundness of human nature to believe that when a man is appointed to an office, he will endeavour to act fairly and justly. The man who holds the position of sheriff or registrar or postmaster of an important town, or collector of -customs of an important port, a man who has a stake in the community, a man who is meeting the public from day to day and who desires to retain the good opinion of his fellow-Citizens, no matter what their political colour may be, may be depended upon to do the fair and just thing. If you will pardon me, Mr. Chairman, a personal allusion, the registrar and I think the deputy registrar in the constituency which I have the honour to represent in this House were both appointed years ago by a Conservative Government in Quebec. It has been the invariable custom in the constituency which I represent to have the registrar appointed returning officer whether the election be Dominion or provincial. I know the registrar is a staunch old Tory.


Mr. LALOR:: Good for him.


Andrew Ross McMaster: I do not know whether he is a Unionist or not.


Ernest Lapointe: Still better.


Andrew Ross McMaster: Still less applause
when the name "Unionist" is mentioned. I believe he is a staunch old Tory; but if I am the Liberal candidate in the constituency of Brome at the next election, and he is appointed returning officer, I am sure he and his deputy-the latter would possibly do most of the work-would give me a fair show, not because of their political views, but because they are honest men
holding responsible positions in the community, meeting Liberals and Conservatives day after day in connection with their public work. It is from this class of officials that the proposal of the hon. member (Mr. Fielding) contemplates the appointment of returning officers. I think the suggestion is a good one,


Mr. BEST:: If none of the different men named in the amendment as holding these public offices has ever been overseas, and if an eminently qualified returned soldier, who had probably lost an arm or a leg, was in need of the money to help him along, to whom would my hon. friend give the position, if this amendment carries?


Andrew Ross McMaster: If this amendment
carried, and there were a sufficient number of people to be returning officers, they would have to be chosen from this list just the same as if there are a sufficient number of lawyers who are prepared to take office on the bench-the fact that there is a leturned soldier who would like the position, -would not alone entitle him to it.


William Antrobus Griesbach: If the hon. member (Mr. Fielding) would permit, I should like to move this amendment to his amendment-, that amongst the list of persons who might be selected as returning officers, he might add the words "or a returned soldier". *


William Stevens Fielding: I would not object to that. He could come in under the latter part of the clause, that if these men are not available the Government shall appoint a competent person.


William Antrobus Griesbach: A returned soldier.


William Stevens Fielding: This is a new thought, to me and I should like to see a preference given to the returned soldier if possible. If we were to make an amendment to the Judges' Act, would my hon. friend suggest that preference should be given to a returned soldier? He is a returned soldier and he may come in for a position on the bench some day, but not many men would be qualified in that way. If the list mentioned in my amendment is not a fair one, if there is any suspicion of partisanship in it, I am perfectly willing to have some other recognized officials appointed by the Government included in the list.


James Hamilton Ross: I wish to support the amendment of my hon. friend (Mr. Fielding). If the Acting Solicitor General and the Minister of the Interior are sincere when they say they want this law to be absolutely fair

to all political parties, I cannot see why this amendment should not be accepted. It may be very true that things have happened in the past through the action of returning officers that have not been just what they should have been, but we are not dealing with the past now, but with the present and with the future of this country. If there is one impression more prevalent in this land at the present time than another, it is that the people have lost faith in politicians, that they have lost faith-I might as well be frank-in a gTeat many members of this Parliament and of all other parliaments. If you wish to remove that impression, whether it be true or false, you should endeavour to make an election law that will be so absolutely fair that, no imputation of unfairness can be cast upon it.
I listened with some surprise to the rather bitter words from my hon. friend (Mr. Davidson). I do not think there was much force in what he said, because what happened twenty or thirty years ago does not need to be repeated now, so far as history is concerned. I was also surprised at this statement about returning officers in the province of Nova Scotia. We have heard of that 50-50 arrangement time and again in this House. We heard about it when the Union Government was being formed, but there was no 50-50 arrangement carried out in that case. I speak with regard to the appointment of enumerators in the province of Ontario with some feeling, because I remember very distinctly that the Prime Minister of this country in November, 1917, issued a public pronouncement to the effect 'that the election that was about to be held, during a period when the country was struggling for its life, and when, if ever, there should have been a spirit of fairness displayed, would be conducted fairly to all parties. I know very well what happened in Ontario. We were told in that pronouncement that enumerators and all election officials would be chosen impartially, that both parties would be considered, that as a matter of fact candidates would be consulted. I was told in my riding by a minister of the Crown that I would be allowed to choose the enumerators in what is now the southern part of the riding, then the old riding of West Middlesex. If that had been done it would have been fair and honest, but what happened? Although I had the absolute promise of a minister of the Crown that such would be the case, I was never consulted in the appointment of enumerators, and as I listened to the pious promises of the Minister of Militia and the

Minister of the Interior, I could not help thinking of what happened in 1917. I do not think there is any likelihood of returning officers being appointed under this law who will be in any way favourable to a Liberal or a member of the United Farmers' party, and so I tell my hon. friend (Mr. Thomson) that he is resting his faith on a broken reed.
What are the actual facts in regard to these appointments? The same thing always happens. The local committee is asked to choose a returning officer, and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred he is chosen primarily because he is a good and .faithful follower of the government in power, although other considerations, such as his ability and position as a respectable member of the community may be taken into account. If that is the practice that has prevailed in the past, I say it will prevail in the future, and returning officers will be chosen -who will support Union Government, if there is such a thing before the country at that time, which I very much doubt.
With reference to the amendment that has been moved by my hon. friend (Mr. Fielding) I must take exception to what was said by my hon. friend (Mr. Griesbach) with regard to clerks of municipalities. In Ontario they are certainly not partisan, far from it. They are not chosen for political reasons at all. They are generally men of outstanding ability and integrity in the community, and would act as returning officers with fairness and absolute impartiality.


Joseph Archambault: The same is true of Quebec.


James Hamilton Ross: If the Minister of Militia
and the Minister of the Interior are sincere in their statements that they want an election law that will be fair, here is the talisman in the amendment of my hon. friend (Mr. Fielding.)
I would mention another thing in regard to the appointment of returning officers under this law. Before 1917 the office of returning officer was certainly not as important as it will .be under this law. Under the old law the returning officer appointed his deputy, who in turn appointed the poll clerk, and so on; but under this law the returning officer, who is bound to be a partisan as the law stands, is given power to appoint not only his deputy but all registrars, who have the absolute say as to who shall vote at an election, and from whose decision there is no appeal. Whitt is bound to happen? If you appoint a partisan returning officer, he is bound to appoint a partisan registrar or enumerator,

and that registrar or enumerator is going to see that the lists are prepared in such a way that the party which appoints him will be helped. Even under the War-time Elections Act the returning officer had no such power as he will have under this Act, because under the old Act the enumerator had not nearly such large powers as he will have under this Act. Under the old Act he could only add to the list the names of female voters and strike off the names of alien enemies, but under this Act he will have absolute control.


Francis Ramsey Lalor: Have the returning officers acted unfairly, in the past? Were they unfair in the last general election?
iMr. ROSS: I cannot very well give specific instances because there have been no election trials, but I know that in my own riding out of 69 enumerators appointed, only one was of my political faith.


Avard Longley Davidson: The hon. gentleman
was in a minority.


Mr. OURRIE:: Was that one opposed to conscription?


James Hamilton Ross: Yes, he was. I want to be exact. I think there were three men appointed out of the 69 who leaned towards Liberalism, but they were appointed for obvious reasons which I need not mention, except to say that they failed to prevent my election. The point I make is this: Under the War-time Elections Act the returning officers did not have the right to appoint registrars in the Yukon, for instance. Under the old law the registrars were appointed by the senior judge, and there was a provision in the War-time Elections Act that if sufficient enumerators had not been appointed by the Government, the returning officer could appoint a further number, but only with the concurrence and acting jointly with two justices of the peace. That shows it was not considered wise to give the returning officer absolute control over the appointment of enumerators, and if it was not wise then, it is no wiser at the present time.
I think the arguments made by my hon. friend (Mr. McMaster) cannot be answered. The hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's in his amendment asks that men of recognized standing in the community, who have some reputation at stake, and who in all likelihood would be dismissed if they did anything unfair, because one party is not going to retain power for all time, should be appointed as returning officers. These men would be on their honour, their
reputation and positions would be at stake, and I am confident they would act in all fairness and with absolute impartiality.


Mr. MORPHY:: Is there anything in the section to prevent a man from any one of the classes mentioned in the amendment from being appointed?
Mr. ROSS):	There is nothing there to
prevent it, but we know from experience they would not be appointed. What will be done is just what I have said, and I have much pleasure in supporting the amendment.


John Best: The hon. member (Mr. Ross) says .that if this Government had the appointing of returning officers neither Liberals nor Farmers would have a chance. If the hon. member reflected for a moment he "would perceive that if this amendment carried not a farmer in Canada would have the opportunity of being appointed. It would be impossible, because every position named in this amendment is to be held by some man who is not a farmer. For that .reason I oppose the amendment. In the past the farmer has had no chance to get anything, and now hon. members, including my hon. friend from Middlesex (Mr. Ross), who is a lawyer, appeal to the farmers in this Chamber to support an amendment that would debar farmers.


Mr. BELAND:: May I tell my hon. friend that in my district the sheriff is a tanner and the collector of revenue a farmer?


John Best: Every hon. member must admit that the men who hold these different responsible positions should properly discharge their duties, and if they attend scrupulously to those duties they cannot do much farming. The man to whom my hon. friend refers may undoubtedly have been a farmer. There are men in Toronto and Ottawa whom we might describe as joy farmers. Mr. Eaton of Toronto has a beautiful farm, and so have many other citizens. I claim, however, that if a man has been a resident in a county for a number of years and has cleared a hundred or two hundred acres of land he is eminently qualified to fill one of these positions, and yet the hon. member for Queen's and Shelburne introduces an amendment that would forbid the appointment of such a man. We must appoint some one who i.s already in receipt of Government money. I am satisfied, from vast experience and a study of political events during the last thirty years, that it is the staunchest politicians in the county that are appointed to these

offices, and if you are going to change the stripes of these men in a night you are doing something I have never seen- done before. I trust that no mam who has any interest in the farmers will vote for the amendment, which will only shut out any farmer from being a returning officer.


Mr.   BOSS@: In nine cases out of ten, are the clerks of municipalities named in the lists farmers?


John Best: No, only in a few cases.
- Mr. BOSS: Not the county, the township.


John Best: The county is a municipality.


Ernest Lapointe: Your law is wrong.


John Best: Very few clerks of municipalities are farmers.


Mr. TWEJBDIE:: The argument seems to be proceeding on the assumption that all virtual honesty is confined to those who have received appointments from -Governments, whether provincial or federal. In my experience on three different occasions, the returning officers who conducted the election in my constituency were appointed by Liberal Governments who were directly opposed to me in politics, and on one occasion by a Government favourable to me. On not a single one of these four occasions have I had the slightest reason whatever to complain of the work carried on by these various returning officers. They are absolutely honest and fair in the performance of their duties, and I think that the suggestion of the hon. member for Qu'Appelle (Mr. Thomson) is one that should be very seriously considered. The responsibility for the appointment of these officers should, I think, be placed upon the Government. It seems to me that the election is really a part of the government of the country, and the machinery for carrying on the government, so far as the elections are concerned, should be placed absolutely in the hands of the party in power. Then, if the election is not conducted fairly and squarely, there is adequate means under our Election Act whereby those who violate their duty and their oath may he brought to justice, if only those who are complaining so bitterly will take cognizance of the law and proceed against offenders. The amendment of the hon. member for Queen's and Shelburne carries upon its face its own condemnation. It gives the very reason why it should be voted down. Every man recognizes that the duties of a returning officer in any election are about as onerous as can

be undertaken by any man; and long before the election, while he is getting ready his lists, preparing his polling subdivisions, getting ready for the distribution of boxes and the appointment of deputy returning officers, he is taxed to his utmost night and day in order that these various duties may be discharged promptly and correctly. After the election he is called upon to hold his court and to make returns, which takes some time; and from the time of hi3 appointment until the performance of his last duty, he has not a single moment which he can devote to any other work. This amendment asks that we should appoint as returning officers, in the various constituencies of Canada, men rvho have already onerous duties to perform, perhaps sheriffs, clerks of courts, or clerks of municipalities. Is it fair that this House should coerce into the additional duties of returning officer men who already have burdensome duties which they are bound to render and for which they are being paid? If w'e appoint that class of men we shall appoint men who will neglect their duties as returning officers in order that they may be free to discharge the duties by means of which they obtain their permanent livelihood. But further, such men are the employees of Provincial Governments. Their masters are the Provincial Governments, and at the present time I do not believe there is a single Provincial Government in Canada which is in sympathy with this Government; in fact, the majority of them are openly opposed to it. We must have absolute jurisdiction over the officials who are going to administer the Election Act of this country at the next election; and when we have as returning officers men who are serving governments which are opposed to us and trying to serve us at the same time, we cannot expect that harmony will prevail or that we will have from these men that loyalty and disinterestedness in their work which they should display. Therefore, for these reasons if for no other, I submit that this amendment should be voted down and the appointment of election officers left absolutely in the hands of the Government of this country.
Some hon. M32MBEBS: Question.


Jean-Joseph Denis: It is rather amusing to hear hon. gentlemen opposite shouting "Question." Surely some serious argument against the amendment should be forthcoming before the question is put.


Mr. CANNON:: They cannot bring any.

;,T-


Jean-Joseph Denis: So far as I am concerned I past bury its dead, and be content to live
am prepared to stay here for a little while, and I will not let the clause pass until I have heard some cogent argument in favour of the clause as against the amendment. Now let us begin at the beginning.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Jean-Joseph Denis: I mean what I say. If the Acting Prime Minister had been in this Chamber during the whole of the present sitting he would admit at once that my point is well taken. I repeat we must begin at the beginning. Is there an hon. gentleman opposite who has discussed this question on its merits? The hon. member for Digby and Annapolis (Mr. Davidson) has made an attack on the mover of the amendment as if that had anything to do with the merits of the question. Yet that is the kind of argument we have heard from hon. gentlemen opposite ever since this discussion began. Now the first point that has to be settled is this: Is the appointment of the returning officer going to be a partisan appointment or not?


Ernest Lapointe: That is all.


Jean-Joseph Denis: Is this committee of the opinion that the appointment of the returning officer should be a partisan appointment? If the answer is in the affirmative all we have to do is to have the fact recorded and take the vote, and hon. gentlemen who * assume that attitude must shoulder the responsibility for it. But such was not the stand that hon. gentlemen opposite professed to take; such was not the attitude of the minister (Mr. Guthrie) when he submitted the Bill to the House. The minister announced, and it was reported in all the newspapers in the country, that he was willing to submit a fair and equitable Bill. Now we are going to see whether this particular clause is fair and if hon. gentlemen opposite are willing to stake their reputation upon this clause and to admit that they want it to remain in its present partisan form I am afraid the declaration which was made by the minister will have to be modified. In that case he had better declare to the committee: we have a fair and equitable Bill except for clause 22 which is a partisan clause. Now no one can deny that this clause in its present form is of a partisan nature. Some people declare that it has always been the law. Well, Sir, the members of this committee must be big enough and broad-minded enough to let the dead
in this year of grace 1920.


Ernest Lapointe: They are not big
enough for that.


Mr. DENTS:: We should be broad-minded enough to adopt a clause which can be defended on its merits, without diving into past history in order to try and get a justification for it. Considering this clause on its merits no one can deny that it is a partisan clause.


John Allister Currie: It is not partisan.


Jean-Joseph Denis: I would like to hear any one attempt to argue that this is not a partisan clause. Now the question is: What are you going to suggest? Hon. gentlemen opposite have n-ot yet reached the stage of asking for suggestions. If any one of them would rise and say: "We admit that the clause as drafted is a partisan clause, but we are open to conviction; we admit the situation but we are ready to discuss it;" I would reply: "You are acting in good faith. We are ready to consider your suggestions and you should be equally ready to consider ours." But that is not the stand my hon. friends opposite have taken; they are presenting this clause as their final word in the matter. The clause in its present form is a powerful instrument in the hands of the Government. It will permit them to appoint their own supporters, men who will act in a partisan way if they choose to do so. And yet my hon. friends opposite seem bent upon having this clause enacted and will not hear to its being changed. I have said that no serious argument has been brought against the amendment. Is there a man in this House who can find serious objection to letting the Government or the Governor in Council appoint returning officers from among seven classes of public officials? The amendment applies to at least seven individuals, but in most constituencies it will represent a greater number than seven. Because there are sometimes two prothonotaries; there may be two registrars; there is certainly a sheriff, there are several clerks, taking the cities or incorporated towns; there is at least one secretary-treasurer; there is a postmaster-and there may be several postmasters eligible in a constituency; there is more than one collector of customs in many constituencies and so on. Accordingly the Government is at liberty to make a choice from a considerable number of persons. If they cannot make a suitable selection from that list, then it is open for them to choose who they

please. Is not that a reasonable proposition? Unless hon. gentlemen opposite want to name their partisans a.s returning officers I maintain that it is a reasonable offer.
The hon. member for Digby and Annapolis (Mr. Davidson) confined himself to the province of Nova Scotia and simply mentioned three classes of officials named in the amendment,-the sheriff, the registrar of deeds, and the prothonotary-who, according to him, in the province of Nova Scotia must be Liberal. What about the four other classes of officials who are supposed to be, to a certain extent, friends of the Government? But there is more than that to be borne in mind. We are not here to examine into the question as to whether in the province of Nova Scotia the sheriff, the registrar, or the prothonotary, is Liberal or Conservative: we are here to pass a Bill which will enact the Government to appoint as returning officer a man who is responsible for what he does. Now, the fact can be established that men of this type have not always been appointed in the past, but we want in that position a man of pub-' lie standing. If such a man cannot be found in the list which has been submitted let the Government choose whom they like.
I think that is absolutely reasonable. If it were true that this Bill was being submitted on its merits I see no reason why the amendment should not be accepted. It is open to hon. gentlemen opposite to make any suggestion, and it is equally open to us. JBut we cannot leave this clause as it stands now because it will enable the Government-to nominate the -i'eturning officers, and those officers will have the right of nominating the deputy returning officers, the registrars, and the polling clerks-in fact, they will have control of all the nominations of their subordinates to the number of 200 or 300. To permit those returning officers to b-e the appointees of the Government, and over whom there will be no control, is, it seems to me, most unfair and unjust. I submit therefore that the amendment should be accepted.


John Allister Currie: I have no desire to delay the committee, but I want to say a word or two in answer to the hon. gentleman who has just sat down (Mr. Denis). He says that nothing of a partisan character could be urged against this amendment. In the first place, it has been pointed out quite clearly that every one of the officers mentioned partisan appointees, and in the -majority of cases they hold their appointments during pleasure; in the second place, it has been pointed out


Mr. ROBB:: Does my hon. friend contend that all such officers in the province of Ontario are partisans?


Mr CURRIE:: I said they were all parti san appointees. I do not say that they are all partisans in the province of Ontario, for there we have been able to appoint a few from the Conservative -party. But take the province of Nova Scotia-where the ,hon. gentleman who moved the amendment .comes from,-I think it will be found that for years there have been no Conservative appointments to the office of sheriff.
, Mr. FIELDING:	The sheriff of the
county of Shelburne, which I have the honour to represent, is a Conservative and has held office for 'forty-three years.


Avard Longley Davidson: He is the only one in Nova Scotia.


John Allister Currie: I understand he was appointed before the Liberal administration came into office, and he is the -only one jSO appointed. That answers the question whether there is any partisanship in this amendment. Why, the amendment is bristling with partisanship-ithe-re is not -a single line in it but spells partisanship. But ,there is another objection, and, in my opinion, -a vital objection to the amendment, and it was stated toy the hon. member for Dufferin (Mr. Best). We are all alarmed by the class movement in -this country. This amendment leaves the office of returning officer to be filled by men of one class-government appointees. It bars out the farmer, as the member for Dufferin -stated; it bars out the manufacturer; it bars out the trade unionist, another important element in the community; it bars ou-t 'the fisherman;

it bars out every class in the community from holding the office of returning officer and preserves -the position for those who have been creatures of patronage. For that reason I think every member of this committee -must feel that -if there is to 'be fairness in these appointments the only possible way -to accomplish it is to leave the clause exactly as it is. I hope the committee will vote accordingly.
, Mr. TURGEON: In order to relieve as much as possible the -unrest existing in the minds of some of my hon. friends on the other side of the House, particularly unrest ia.s to our friends the farmers and the returned soldier-s, I -might give to the committee a few illustrations of the diverse occupations followed by the class of officials mentioned in the amendment. But,

first of all, perhaps I ought 'to reply to my hon. friend from Calgary (Mr. Tweedie), who claims most eloquently that the appointment of returning officers should remain in the hands of the Government. This amendment does not take away from the Government the nomination of returning officers; it merely enumerates a number of men from (whom a choice may be made for the position. Undoubtedly the duties of a returning officer require men of education, impartiality and honesty of purpose, and surely such men are to be found occupying the offices set out in the amendment. I might say that in New Brunswick a practice has obtained since before Confederation of each successive government making the appointments for returning officers from the sheriffs, and to-day it happens that about an equal number of our sheriffs hold office through appointment by either party. At the last election every one knows that the then Minister of Public -Works representing my province in the Government-a province which has been left without representation in the Cabinet since he resigned-secured from the present Government the appointment of the sheriffs of the province- to be returning officers at the then pending election. The election took place, and no complaints have been received from any constituency regarding the behaviour of any returning officer, whether he happened to hold his appointment as sheriff from the Liberal party or the Conservative par-ty. In the province of New Brunswick the secretaries of municipalities are- -appointed by the municipalities, some of the appointees being Liberals, others Conservatives. Those secretaries also usually hold the position of treasurer of the -county, and they are appointed by the municipal representatives for their integrity and honesty of purpose, and I have no doubt the same may be said of the same class of officials in every province.
I -may say that the chief collector of customs of the county of Gloucester, who ha-s control over the sub-collectors o-f a very large maritime -county, is a returned soldier appointed by this Government a year or fifteen months ago. He is the son of a -very old Conservative officer in the county, but he got his position on his merits. -Such a man surely ought to he thoroughly reliable for the position of returning officer. Then again the postmaster of the town of Bathur-st, the largest town in the constituency, -is the son of a farmer, who a -few -months -before the war com-98
menced left his heritage to this son, and he is to-day one of the largest farmers in that neighbourhood; he is also a returned soldier. Many young men who -are farmers today are returned soldiers; therefore in selecting men to act as returning officers you may choose farmers, returned soldiers, many who have given evidence of their intelligence, their integrity and their ability. What applies to my constituency applies also, I am sure, to constituencies in other provinces. I submit, therefore, that by adopting this amendment we will give to people of- practically every representative class an opportunity to act as returning officers. The restriction of the selection makes it reasonably certain that men of integrity, men who command the respect of the community, will be selected. I strongly urge the minister to consider the amendment of my hon. friend from Shelburne and Queen's, and trust that the committee will see the propriety of adopting it.


Sir GEORGE FOSTER:: My hon. friend (Mr. Fielding) has given a list of certain officials within the range of which shall be limited the choice of returning officers by whatever government is in power and is directing the election. As I read the amendment, any one of eight, ten, twelve, fifteen, twenty or thirty different persons may be chosen by the Government as returning officer; the list is a pretty generous one. The reason for proposing that limitation is that a government may start out with the idea of using influence which it ought not to use by choosing as returning officers men of their own political belief. Well, if the Government really sets out with that idea in mind, to what extent is the carrying out of that intention limited by restricting appointments as returning officers to a list of twenty or thirty officials? It will be quite possible for a malevolently-minded government to select from that list at least one person from each electoral district who may or can carry on its nefarious designs. The amendment, therefore, is nothing more or less than camouflage. The whole thing depends on whether the Government does set out with the idea of using its returning officers for wrong and evil purposes. That is the first point that I wish to put before the committee. The other is this:	I have been running elections since 1880 under Conservative governments and under Liberal governments. I have yet to find a returning officer whose methods of carrying on the election I have had cause to find fault with. I think that



is a fair type of the experience of all of us. In all the elections which have taken place since Confederation, in how many cases has there been wrong doing on the part of returning offi ers? When a man is appointed as returning officer he has the light of public opinion upon him. 'His character is at stake. He moves among his fellow citizens from day to day. Never is there keener criticism than when elections are on, and the returning officer knows that if he had had any idea of doing wrong, it would be bad policy to try it. Consequently the appointment of a man as returning officer braces up a man, if there is any necessity for bracing him up. But I have enough confidence in my fellow creatures to believe that when public duty is thrust upon them in that kind of representative way, few of them are recreant to their duty; they do about what is the right thing. I do not think that this amendment gets us anywhere. If, as I say, the intent of the Government is to use a returning officer for wrong purposes, it is able to get from this list one of its own political stripe. I cannot see that we should be advanced very much by adopting my hon. friend's proposal.


William Stevens Fielding: I am going to make
a frank confession; I am not able to answer all the arguments that have been used on the other side against this amendment, because they are conflicting. A number of hon. gentlemen have taken great pains to show that the amendment proposes an improper restriction on the power of the Governor in Council; that the Government would be restricted to a small list of persons in their choice of returning officers. But my hon. friend (Sir George Foster) has knocked that all out by stating that the list does not amount to a restriction at all. I cannot answer both these arguments.


George Green Foster: Answer the last one. Will there be any restriction?


William Stevens Fielding: It would hardly be
complimentary to my hon. friend's supporters to assume that they are wrong and that he is right. My hon. friend has missed the point of my whole argument. We all know that there are cases where returning officers have been accused of utterly improper conduct. It is not necessary to go into that; there have been many such cases, even though my hon. friend may have been so fortunate as not to have come in contact with any, and even though I have not made any definite complaint 
myself. But there is beyond all doubt a strong temptation on the part of the Government to appoint returning officers on the nomination of the candidate of their choice. My hon. friend (Mr. H. A. Mac-kie) was frank enough to say that he is opposed to this amendment because he wants to select his own returning officer.


Henry Arthur Mackie: Pardon me; what I said was-speaking for Alberta; I do not know about other provinces-that the list is a list of' partisans, and if partisans are to be appointed, I prefer to have my own choice.


William Stevens Fielding: Well, is it an argument that a man who is once a partisan is always a partisan? Every intelligent man in this country is or ought to be a partisan in some direction. That is to say, he should be identified with one of the political groups and take an interest in the affairs of the country. I do not hold it against any man that he is a partisan; he ought to be a partisan until he becomes a trustee for the people in a public office. Now, are all partisans who are on this list? Take the sheriff. Well, I am not going to discuss them, because they chiefly	relate	to Nova Scotia andQuebec.	The	registrar of deeds is
in most cases not a partisan. I suppose he was Liberal or Conservative one day, but in office he is generally a sober-minded and serious man who is poring over his books, copying his deeds and so forth, and he is a man whom anybody would trust, no matter what his political interest might have been. The clerks of the municipality are appointed" by the municipal authorities, and they cannot be all of one side of politics. Surely they are not all partisans. Then we come down to the secretary or treasurer of a municipality. He is not likely to be a partisan, except in the sense that he votes one way or the other.


Henry Arthur Mackie: Under the municipal law of Alberta, the Government will remove from office any secretary-treasurer of a municipality who will not do just exactly as the minister says, and they will appoint an official trustee in his place.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Shame. .
Mr. H. A. MACKIE.: It is a shame, but it is a fact.


William Stevens Fielding: If I thought my hon. friend was correct in his description of what

happens in Alberta, I should be ashamed of that province.


Henry Arthur Mackie: We are.


William Stevens Fielding: I do not believe my hon. friend can be correct in that respect.
I do not believe the people of Alberta are so lost to a sense of decency and propriety as to keep in power a government, Grit or Tory, which would subscribe to a policy of that kind.
Then we come to the postmaster of a city or town, not the postmaster of a small community because he may not be a competent person; but, as a rule, the postmaster of a city or incorporated town is a more or less intelligent person. Why is he a partisan? It is long years since I had anything to do with the appointment of anybody, but the woods are full of men appointed by hon. gentlemen opposite to these offices throughout the country. Are we to be told that these men are all partisans and not to be trusted? That is the objection to this amendment. For my part, I am willing to trust a postmaster appointed by my opponent, because that postmaster will most likely be a responsible and decent man, and the great test is his holding a responsible position in the community. By virtue of his office, he must be a man of character, who has a stake in the community, and I do not care what his political colour may have been. He is a trustee for the people; he recognizes his trusteeship; I believe that in that list you will have a sufficient choice to give the Government an opportunity of obtaining men, and the Government will be removed from the temptation, which we have under the existing law, to select a man merely and solely because he is to serve a partisan end.


Samuel William Jacobs: The hon. member for Edmonton East (Mr. H. A. Maekie) interjected into the debate a statement of a somewhat astounding character when he told this committee that the Government of Alberta would remove from his position any man who failed to do the bidding of that Government.


Henry Arthur Mackie: Yes, and appoint an official trustee in his place.


Samuel William Jacobs: That being the case, will the hon. gentleman tell me why he is supporting the present Secretary of State (Mr. Sifton) who was the premier of that Government for a number of years? I think he owes some sort of an explanation to the Secretary of State who, unfortunately, is 98J
not in his seat just now to hear the remarks of his supporter.


Henry Arthur Mackie: If I may be permitted, the minister (Mr. Sifton) was appointed premier of the province of Alberta, as he stated himself at the time, to save Liberalism in that province.


Samuel William Jacobs: I noticed how he has saved Liberalism by leading them into the promised land.	What I like about my
hon. friends from the West is their frankness, I was going to say their brutal frankness. Here we have the hon. member for Calgaiy West (Mr. Tweedie) stating in this House that he was in favour of partisan appointments to the various positions that we have discussed this afternoon.


Thomas Mitchell March Tweedie: I made no such statement.


Samuel William Jacobs: Well, inferentially.


Thomas Mitchell March Tweedie: Not even inferentially.
I said just the opposite.


Samuel William Jacobs: When the hon. member
was speaking, I was up in my room, and hearing his voice, I came into the Chanfber.


Thomas Mitchell March Tweedie: What I said was that
three-quarters of my returning officers were Liberals and one-quarter Conservatives. I was absolutely satisfied with their work and know of no reason to change the existing state of the law.


Samuel William Jacobs: As I understand it, the
hon. gentleman complained about the amendment, because he said that the sheriff and other officers named in the amendment were political partisans, and as such, the Government should not hope to obtain justice at their hands.


Thomas Mitchell March Tweedie: May I be allowed to
correct my hon. friend again? I said that those persons named, if appointed returning officers, would be serving two masters and drawing salaries from two masters and would have double duties to perform, either one of which must suffer, and the duty which would suffer would be the important one of returning officer in this country.


Samuel William Jacobs: I should like to ask the
hon. gentleman how, for instance, a sheriff could be serving two masters when he is acting in the position of returning officer? A sheriff is appointed by the Provincial Government, mostly for the purpose, of seeing that hanging takes place in proper and due form.
Mr'. TWEEDIE:	I am sorry that the
hon. member's idea of the duties of a
X

sheriff is that he has merely to supervise hangings. The sheriff has to attend court; he directs the sheriff's office from which emanates a great deal of business in connection with all civil litigation in the county, and a sheriff who will spend two or three months acting as returning officer, cannot possibly perform the duties imposed upon him by Statute and every person engaged in court work and litigation must suffer.


Samuel William Jacobs: If I understand aright the extent of the duties of a sheriff in my province, I fail to see why he cannot officiate as returning officer.


Avard Longley Davidson: What would happen if a hanging happened on election day?


Samuel William Jacobs: If the hanging were of the Conservative or Unionist party to which my hon. friend lends his support, it might be a splendid thing for the country. Let us for the sake of argument assume that there are two sets of partisans: First, the sheriff and other officers who are named by the province, and second, officials named by the Governor in Council. , Assuming that they are both partisans, on the one hand we have the partisan who has already received his reward. He already has his position; he is drawing an emolument from the Government that appointed him, let us say, for past services. On the other hand we have the official who expects to receive in the future some reward for his work. Dr. Johnson defined gratitude as a lively sense of favours to be received. If that applies in this case, then the gratitude will be altogether on the part of the official named by the Governor in Council. The men who are to be appointed under the suggestion made by my hon. friend (Mr. Fielding) are splendid officials; they know something about the work which is to be required


Francis Ramsey Lalor: Hear, hear.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Samuel William Jacobs: Perhaps my voice was not loud enough to carry across the floor. The men -who would be appointed under the amendment suggested by my hon. friend are experienced men; they know how business of that kind is to be conducted. They are, so to speak, men who are permanent ^officials. Hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House ought to remember this; that it is within the memory of men still living [DOT]when the Conservative party dominated various provinces. I can remember when *they were at the head of affairs in British {Mr. Tweedie.]
Columbia; I can even remember when they were at the head of affairs in Manitoba. I suppose some of the members of this House remember why they are not now at the head of affairs in Manitoba. I can even remember when they were at the head of affairs in Ontario, and that is only recently. I can remember when they were at the head of affairs in Prince Edward Island, only a short time ago, and when they were at the head of affairs in Quebec, and in othei provinces in this Dominion.


John Allister Currie: They will be at the head of affairs again in a few years.


Samuel William Jacobs: Hope springs eternal in the human breast. If they are going to be at the head of affairs again, why do hon. gentlemen on the other side of the House so vig-ourously oppose this amendment? I cannot see any reason at all why a municipal clerk, for instance, should not be a returning officer. These men are not appointed by the Government, but by the municipalities and cities which they serve. In many cases I understand farmers are appointed to these positions. It is true that registrars are appointed by the provincial authorities, but sheriffs and registrars are long lived. Some one has said of civil servants, that they never resign and few die, so there must be at present available a very large number of men who at one time supported the Cbn-servative party and who would be in the list proposed by my hon. friend (Mr. Fielding).


Henry Herbert Stevens: How could a collector of customs at a large port, a postmaster, a municipal clerk, a registrar, or a sheriff in any reasonably large and active county, act as returning officer without getting leave of absence for at least six or ten weeks, and how could he get that without the permission of the local authorities? Does my hon. friend think it is really a practicable suggestion?


Samuel William Jacobs: I would point out that
most of the work of registrars, sheriffs, and so on is done by deputies. Every sheriff, every registrar and every town clerk has his deputy. In Quebec to-day.the sheriffs act as returning officers and the system works out splendidly. Why should it not work out equally well in other provinces? The duties of these men are performed by deputies, and there would therefore be no difficulty at all in the way my hon. friend suggests. My experience with officials of this kind is that when there is a doubt as between the two parties the officer always gives the benefit of the doubt against his own party. These officials are so straight that they bend back-

wards. I need only instance our Chairman, the Deputy Speaker of the House. He is so straight sometimes that he bends backwards, and that is my experience with other officials. No valid argument has been offered why these men, a large number of whom have acted successfully heretofore as returning officers, and who have given satisfaction, should be ordered to stand aside in favour of irresponsible men who may be here to-day, and for whom there may be an extradition warrant out to-morrow. For these reasons I have much pleasure in supporting the amendment of my hon. friend (Mr. Fielding).


Mr. CRQTHERS:: I think we have got
some very valuable information, or admissions, from my hon. friend (Mr. Fielding) who has moved this amendment, and from other gentlemen who have supported it. He and they have all admitted that during the past fifty years postmasters, collectors of customs, registrars of deeds, and many other officers have all been men of intelligence and integrity. That is a most important admission. My hon. friend - (Mr. Fielding) says he knows an old Conservative in his province who was appointed 43 years ago, and he is honest and intelligent yet.


William Stevens Fielding: Not withstanding.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: These men appointed
during the last fifty years were appointed under the old patronage system, whether by a partisan Liberal or a partisan Conservative government, and although some hon. gentlemen opposite are strongly opposed to patronage along these lines, they come forward at the end of fifty years and certify that these men are all men of intelligence and integrity whom they can trust in the important office of returning officer. That speaks very well for the old system of appointment. My hon. friend (Mr. McMas-ter) mentioned the case of a friend of his, an old Conservative, who was appointed a great many years ago, and in whom he has unbounded confidence. My hon. friend reasons in this way: He says that as soon as one of these men is appointed a returning officer, no matter how partisan he may have been and every one of them was partisan, whether Liberal or Conservative, for under the old system the most enthusiastic Liberal or the most enthusiastic Tory in the county, was appointed to the office if his party was in power in the province-he will rise to the responsibility that is cast upon him, and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred will be honest and fair. I believe my hon. friend has struck the nail on the head. If there is
anything in a man at all, even if he is appointed to an important position because he was a partisan, he will rise to the occasion and discharge the duties of his office honestly and faithfully and impartially as between the two parties. There is no question *about that. I believe that the men appointed under this Act will also rise to the wr-casion in the same way. I have been inpolitics for forty years, and the only case T ever knew of a returning officer being a. *party to extensive fraud in the riding was-a man who had been appointed sheriff of the.-*county by a partisan government in the' *province of Ontario. He was afterwards dismissed because he had taken part in this *fraudulent election. That is the only case I remember in forty years. If, therefore, we have succeeded, as the mover of this amendment and those who support it admit, in appointing during the last fifty years men of intelligence and integrity, I think the Government whether Liberal or Conservative *can be trusted in the future to appoint men *of intelligence and integrity to discharge the *important duties of returning officer for any constituency in Canada.	.


Hugh Guthrie: I move that the committee rise and report progress and ask leave to sit again this day.


Mr. MACKENZIE KING:: May I draw the attention of my hon. friend to the circumstance that some little time ago the Government promised that when we reached Section 29 an amendment would be introduced? I was going to ask the minister if it would not be possible to let us know the terms of that amendment before we take up the section, so that we might have an opportunity to consider it in all its bearings. This would save time in the end.


Hugh Guthrie: Perhaps I might read it now so that it may appear on Hansard.


Georges Henri Boivin: I fake it for granted that the hon. member has withdrawn his motion that the committee rise. That motion is, of course, not debatable.


Hugh Guthrie: I withdraw the motion for the moment, Mr. Chairman. There are two proposed amendments. The' first is in regard to the votes of Indians. The Bill provides in Section 29 that Indians shall not vote. I move an amendment as subsection (d) as follows:
Provided, however, that any Indian ordinarily resident on an Indian reserve who has served in the naval, military or air forces of Canada in the late war shall he qualified to vote, unless such Indian is otherwise disqualified under paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) of this section.
lo36

I also move as an amendment to Section 29 the further clause:
Provided that no disability imposed by paragraph (b) of subclause 4 of section 8 of the Naturalization Act (1919) shall disentitle a person on that ground alone to the said certificate.
I read these amendments at the present time by way of notice, and now move that the committee rise and report progress.


[Stage Direction]
Motion agreed to.
Progress reported.

[Stage Direction]
Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER informed the House that a message had been received from the Senate acquainting the House that the Senate concurred with the House of Commons by approving and confirming the organization of the officers and clerks of the Joint Distribution Office of the Senate and House of Commons as submitted to the House of Commons on the 31st day of March last.
At six o'clock the House took recess.
After Recess.
The House resumed at Eight o'clock.

[Stage Direction]
✓

[Stage Direction]
Hon. J. D. REID (Minister of Railways and Canals) moved the third reading of Rill No. 54 to confirm the agreement, dated the 8th day of March, 1920, between His Majesty the King and the Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada, for the acquisition by His Majesty of the capital stock of the said Grand Trunk Railway Company, except the four per cent guaranteed stock.
Rt. Hon. iC. J. DOHERTY (Minister of [DOT]Justice):	The hon. member for Shelburne
*and Queen's (Mr. Fielding) last evening suggested the addition to the Bill of a clause for the purpose of negativing [DOT]any inference, from anything contained In the (Bill, that it was intended to authorize the lending of money by the Government to the Board of Management provided for in the agreement. Some days ago, when the Bill was in Committee, it was suggested that a clause in the agreement which empowers the Board of Management to borrow money, with the consent of the Governor in Council, from the Government of the country, .was a departure from the' provisions

of the Act of last session. It was .pointed out that that tAct when it was before the House in the form of a Bill, did contain a clause authorizing the lending of money by the Government, and that that clause was, after discussion, dropped. At the time this question was raised I gave the reason why I could not concur in the view that the insertion of that clause in the agreement was in any way in contradiction with the fact that the clause I have mentioned in the Bill had been dropped, and that the Act of last session contained no authorization to loan. I pointed out that the clause in the agreement was merely conferring a power upon the Board of Management. I still think that that was the full effect of the clause. (Last evening, however, my hon. friend pointed out if I correctly grasp his view, that even if what I had represented was perfectly exact the circumstance that the agreement containing that clause was ratified by Parliament, as it is by the present Bill, afforded ground for arguing that our present action in so ratifying was equivalent to, or amounted to an authorization to the Government to lend money. I did not understand the hon. gentleman to contend such a proposition to be absolutely beyond question; but he pointed out that it might be argued with considerable force. I am not myself disposed to think that the proposition could be sustained, but I quite recognize it might possibly be contended that from the action of ratification there was some ground for inference of intention, at all events, to authorize such a thing. . In this Bill there is no purpose to bring about any such authorization-no purpose to qualify the legislation of last year in that respect, and there was no such intention. In view of the fact that possibly the effect suggested might be contended for as a result of our ratification of the agreement containing the clause I have mentioned, and as perhaps this is one _ of the cases where "(Les choses qui vont sans dire vont encore mieux en les disant," I am quite willing* to accept the suggestion made by the hon. gentleman and intend to propose that the Bill be amended by adding a clause to produce the result that he desires. I am quite aware this is perhaps not the absolutely regular way to make my motion, but if I may have the unanimous consent of the Blouse, which I would anticipate would be granted, I would ask to move that the Bill be amended by adding thereto the following as clause 3:	1	.
3. Nothing herein contained shall he construed as authorizing any lending of money

by the Government to the Managing Committee mentioned in the fourth section of the said agreement without the specific authority of Parliament.
William Stevens Fielding: I am very glad that the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Doherty) has seen fit to accept my amendment. He has accurately set forth the view I intended to present to the House last night. I did not argue that it was absolutely certain that the clause in question conveyed an obligation on the Government's part to lend-in fact I am rather inclined to think that if the matter were fought out in the courts it would be held that inasmuch as there was no specific and direct authority to lend therefore there was none-nevertheless I think a strong argument could be put up to the effect that since that clause was in the agreement, and since the Government had confirmed the agreement by their executive act and brought it to Parliament to ratify it, it contained authority for the Government to lend as well as a more direct authority to the board to borrow. However the right hon. gentleman has now taken Steps to meet the point, and the clause that he proposes to add, which I suggested last night, has my entire approval. I do not know, however, how far the amendment which he proposes to add on the motion for third reading, may meet the wishes of the House.


Mr. SPEAKER:: I must direct the attention of the House to the fact that this amendment can only be entertained on third reading by unanimous consent. Otherwise the course to pursue would be to move to refer the Bill back into committee for the purpose of amending it.


William Stevens Fielding: I trust that the amending of the Bill in this form will not preclude us from moving any other amendments we desire to present before the Bill is read a third time.


Mr. J. D. REID:: No.


[Stage Direction]
Amendment agreed to.
Edgar Nelson Rhodes: When shall the Bill be read a third time?


Mr. DOHERTY:: Now.


Hon. W. L. MACKENZIE KING:: Before the Bill is read a third time, I should like to make one more appeal to the Government and to Parliament on behalf of those employees of the Grand Trunk Railway Company who have been deprived of their pensions in consequence of the strike which took place in July, 1910. My reason, Mr. Speaker, for doing this is that I believe a great wrong has been done a large section of the working people of this country and that this is the last opportunity to remove altogether any doubt as to the rights which many of us believe, and Parliament as a whole admits, they are legitimately entitled to. It is not my purpose to go over the ground which has already been covered in committee, but I wish to outline one or two salient facts, and I might mention that when I have concluded my remarks I intend to move an amendment, which I hope the members of the House will support in view of the reasons which may be urged on its behalf.
When the strike of July, 1910, took place, as the House is aware, the Grand Trunk Railway system was tied up from Chicago to Portland. The greater part of this Dominion was very seriously affected. The strike was settled as the result of an agreement entered into between the employees and the company. In connection with the negotiations that had to do with that settlement the late Sir Frederick Borden and myself, at that time ministers of the Crown, were present in Montreal, and heard and witnessed everything that' took place between the parties. When the settlement was finally entered into we undertook as ministers of the Crown that should any dispute arise in the future as to the meaning of certain terms in the agreement we would be prepared to give our word as to the understanding of those terms as agreed upon at the time.
The men were reinstated on the understanding that they were to be put back in their former positions, or, to use the exact terms of the agreement:
The company will put back as soon as possible the men. other than those who may have been or may be found guilty of acts of violence or disorderly conduct, the understanding being that there is to be no coercion or intimidation towards the new men.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: If my hon. friend will allow me a question at this point it may save some discussion. I was under the impression that although the words "put back as soon as possible'' are in the agreement, there was a private understanding that the expression meant ninety days. If so, I would like to ask another question after the hon. member has answered this.


George Gerald King: I explained
that position fully when we were in committee, but I will explain it again. The company agreed, as stated here, to put the men back as soon as possible. The

men tried to get from the company an understanding of what the words "as soon as possible" meant. We spent nearly two days trying to get the Grand Trunk general manager and president to give a definite meaning to those words, and finally he gave to them the meaning of ninety days. It was understood that as soon as he attached to those words a definite period, if that period were acceptable to the men, the strike would be at an end. Ninety days was acceptable to the men. It was not a private understanding, beyond this-that the terms of the agreement were to go to the public as drawn.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: That is where I want to ask my next question. Why was not the "ninety days" put in the agreement? You had the power to get those words inserted; why did you not put them in?


George Gerald King: My hon. friend uses the expression: You had the power to get those words inserted, why did you not put them in?


Hugh Boulton Morphy: Well, you are assuming all the credit for the settlement, and the omission of those words caused all the trouble.


George Gerald King: I am not assuming any credit whatever; I am merely endeavouring to state to the House the facts. The parties responsible for the agreement were the company and those who were acting on behalf of the employees. The agreement was entered into between the employees and the company, and the language used in the agreement was come to between them, and was not suggested either by Sir Frederick Borden or by myself. But we were present during the negotiations, and the company insisted on retaining the expression "as soon as possible." The men said, "We have no objection to your using that expression, but we would like to have some definite meaning attached to it. Do you interpret "as soon as possible"to mean one month, two months, three months, or a longer period?" If my hon. friend will take the trouble to peruse tjie somewhat lengthy communication I read to the House a few nights ago he will find the whole course of the negotiations described explicitly and in detail, and he will discover there that after very considerable difficulty Sir Frederick Borden and I succeeded in getting Mr. Hays to agree that "as soon as possible" would mean three months. We had previously ascertained from the men that if Mr. Hays would give that interprets-
tion it would be satisfactory to them, and that it would also be satisfactory to them to accept the agreement as drawn. We had not any say in the wording one way or the other; the agreement was drawn between the parties, and it was perfectly agreeable to both sides that the words "as soon as possible" should remain in the agreement so long as Sir Frederick Borden and myself, as ministers of the Crown, were .prepared publicly to state, should the question ever be raised, that those words meant a period of ninety days. And that is what I am stating now.
As I say, it was with the greatest difficulty that we succeeded in getting the company to declare that definite limitation of time. It was made finally. by the vice-president of the company, Mr. Wainwright, coming to Ottawa and stating that he had the authority of the president .to give the words that definite meaning. As soon as Mr. Wainwright gave other ministers of the Government and myself that assurance, I sent a confirmatory wire to the men, in accordance with an understanding that we had prior to Mr. Wainwright's coming to Ottawa. But befoie I read that telegram, let me explain further to my hon. friend \Mr. Morphy), so that he will not be in any doubt as to what actually transpired. The strike was on, and every hour counted. I had told Mr. Hays before I left Montreal that unless he gave to those words " as soon as possible " a definite meaning, and was prepared to settle the strike on the basis of the agreement, I would return to Ottawa, lay the matter before my colleagues and get their permission to make a public statement to the effect, that the parties had arrived at an agreement, all the terms of which were satisfactory to them, but that the strike was not ended for the sole reason that he was unwilling to give to the phrase "as soon as possible " any definite meaning; and that therefore responsibility for continuance of the strike must rest entirely on him. When the company knew that was the position, that the responsibility for the continuance of the strike was about ip be put on the president and general manager for his arbitrary action, Mr. Hays sent his vice-president, Mr. Wainwright, to Ottawa with authority to give those words the meaning of ninety days. As soon as that was done I sent to the men the following telegram:


Hugh Boulton Morphy: Before you read the
telegram, will you please let me put an-

other question:	Was the authority given
in writing or by word of mouth?


George Gerald King: The authority was given as set forth in the communication which I read to the House, and which is on Hansard.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: The hon. gentleman
might answer me. I was away when he delivered his speech.


George Gerald King: Mr. Wainwright came to a meeting at which Mr. Brodeur, Mr. Pugsley and myself, then ministers of the Crown, were present, and at that meeting he stated that he had the authority of the president of the company to give the words "as soon as possible " the meaning of ninety days; that he had been given that authority before he left Montreal; and that if that interpretation was ever questioned, he would resign his position as vide-president.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: So it was purely verbal?


George Gerald King: As far as I
remember at the moment, it was. At any rate, it was whatever is contained in the document. At the time, I wrote out all the details of the strike, believing that possibly something might arise in regard thereto. But the matter is not in any way pertinent to the strike issue as no one has ever raised a question as to whether the understanding was or was not put in writing.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: I beg my hon. friend's
pardon. Considerable dispute arose because the term of ninety days was not inserted in the agreement.


George Gerald King: At any rate
the telegram I sent to the leaders of the men was as follows:
Mr. Hays has given Sir, Frederick Borden and myself an undertaking that the men will within three months from this date he taken back into the service and within that time be placed in their former positions. We understand by the men all the men referred to in the agreement signed by both parties. In accordance with our understanding I shall expect to hear by wire immediately that the strike has been declared at an end. I will confirm this wire by letter over my own signature.
Tours faithfully,
W. L. Mackenzie King,
Minister of Labour.
As soon as that wire was received by the leaders the strike was declared at an end. Now, the important point in that connection is that the strike was declared at an end in virtue of the circumstance that the president of the company had agreed to reinstate these men within a period of ninety days in the positions which they formerly held, and that ministers of the Crown were prepared to vouch for that being the undertaking. That being the case, the only point that is of importance at the present time is: Were those men put back in the positions which they formerly held, and what was meant by putting them back in their positions? Two difficulties arose. One was whether certain men had been guilty of acts of violence. If they had been guilty of acts of violence they were not entitled to be reinstated, but if they had not beep guilty of acts of violence they were to be put back in their former positions. When a t number of men were not reinstated it was asserted that they were not being put back in their positions because they had been guilty of acts of violence. To settle that question Mr. Justice Barron was appointed to investigate the cases of all the men who were alleged to have been guilty of acts of violence, and the president of the company agreed to reinstate every man whom Mr. Justice Barron said should be reinstated. Mr. Justice Barron's inquiry lasted several months, and I believe that even when it was concluded the president of the company still hesitated to put back some men whom Mr. Justice Barron irecommended should be put back.
However, the question of reinstatement was only a part, as it subsequently turned out, of what affected the real position of the men. Those who were taken back found a little later on to their utter amazement, that the president of the company was taking the position that because the men had been out on strike they should lose all rights to a pension fund to which they were entitled. Now, the point I wish to make clear to members of the House is that in the whole of the negotiations between the parties, the question of pensions was never discussed one iway or the other. The right hon. Minister of Justice (Mr. Doherty) mentioned the other evening that I had said that the strike leaders themselves had said that they did not care anything about pensions. I wish to repeat that statement now. The strike leaders did say to me that they cared nothing one way or the other about pensions. But they did not make that statement in connection with the settlement; they were describing to me the position that organized labour generally takes in that regard. If pensions are to be used as a means of shackling freedom; if they are to be used as a means

of keeping men in employment and preventing them from going on strike no matter what conditions may arise, then they do not afford to men the real service they ought to render. It was in that connection that the strike leaders said to me, and stated publicly in the press, as can be found by reference to the papers of that time, that the matter of pensions twas a secondary feaure. But (when it comes to the terms of the agreement,, under which the men were to be put back in their former positions, or to be returned to the service in full standing-if the Grand Trunk Kailway Company intended not to allow the men their pensions, they should have said so. But they did not bring that question forward, nor was it discussed from the beginning to the end of the negotiations. When the settlement was made I was undei the impression-I know the strike leaders were under the impression, and I am positive that all the men on the Grand Trunk Kailway system were under the impression -that when the men were put hack in their positions they would be reinstated in full standing and would be entitled to the pensions which they would ordinarily have received. But the company has never given them the pensions, and what I ask Parliament to do now is to express the view that these pensions should be regarded as owing to the men and that the rights of the men in that respect shall in no way. be affected by the strike.
The reason why I bring this matter up in connection with this Bill is that the primary object of the Bill, as stated by the Minister of Railways (Hon. J. D. Reid) is to correct certain errors and to remove certain doubts. Well, I think there has hen an error in this particular. The Government have bad before them the representations of employees as to this matter of pensions never having been properly settled. The agreement between the Grand Trunk Railway Company and the Government refers to the subject oif pensions. Therefore, there should have been inserted in the agreement something which would remove all possible doubt as to the rights of the employees in the matter of their pensions.
If this Parliament has reason to believe that it was the intention of that settlement that the imen should be entitled to their pensions, they should express themselves accordingly at this time, and see to it that the pensions if possible, are secured.
Some question was raised the other night as to why this matter had not been brought up before. Qne minister asked why, if the [Mr Mackenzie King,]
facts are as I have stated, I did not introduce a measure along this line at the time I was a member of the Government of Sir Wilfrid Laurier. As I explained the other evening, the strike took place in July, 1910. It was well on in the spring of 1911 before Mr. Justice Barron r-epailted the results of his investigation into the cases of the men who, it was alleged, had been guilty of acts of violence. As long as Mr. Justice Barron had those cases under review the Government assumed, and Parliament assumed, that it was the intention of the Grand Trunk Railway Company to carry o,ult it word and see that the men were put back in their positions and that they received the pensions to which they were entitled.


Mr. BURNHAM:: May I ask the hon. gentleman how he assumes that that was the intention when he himself thought it must be by implication and had made no note of it whatever?


George Gerald King: I did not say I thought it was by implication. I said specifically to-night that if the Grand Trunk Railway Company had not intended to give the men the pensions they ought to have said so when the matter was the subject of negotiation. They said that the men were to be put back in their former positions; the whole discussion in the matter of settlement related to conditions after the strike being exactly what they were before the strike. That was the basis of settlement, and if the term's meant anything they meant tlhat the men who had been serving the company for a number of years and were entitled to pensions should not he prejudiced in their positions when the strike was over. The understanding was that bygones were to be bygones and that a settlement should'be made as though nothing whatever had happened. That was the nature of the agreement; that was the distinct understanding. The only men who were to be penalized were those who had been guilty of acts of violence; all others were to be reinstated, they were to be put back in their former positions.
When I was interrupted I was referring to the reason why this step had not been taken sooner. As long as the cases of the men were being investigated the company professed that they intended to carry out the agreement. No one thought at that time that -there was going to be any dispute over the matter of pensions one way or the other. The moment it became apparent that the company were not going to reinstate

the men; the moment it became apparent that certain men were not being reinstated notwithstanding Judge Barron's recommendation to that effect, that moment the Government refused to have any further dealings with Mr. Hays and his company. As I have said, the Government thereupon refused to bring down a Bill recommending financial assistance to 'the company to the extent of several million dollars in connection with some Western , lines. The Grand Trunk Railway Company was refused that aid, for the simple reason that they were not living up to the agreement arrived at in the presence of Sir Frederick Borden and myself. Then, when the Government which succeeded Sir Wilfrid Laurier's Government came into power, the ex-Minister of Labour, the member for West Elgin (Mr. Crothers) took up further with the Grand Trunk Company the question of the reinstatement of the men. He had the same difficulties with the company that we had. He intimated the other evening that he was more successful; that he got the men back into their positions. I am very glad to give my hon. friend every credit for getting them back; I congratulate him upon doing so. But I say this: if he got them back into their former positions, according to his own understanding of the agreement did that not-carry with it their right to restoration to pension benefits? Did he understand that the men were simply being reinstated in positions which they had forfeited, but that they were to be deprived of pensions? I ask my hon. friend that question now.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: When the matter came before me, that question was not raised at [DOT]all by the men. If they had said anything about the question of pensions, I could have had that fixed for them at the same time as I got the other matter adjusted, because we took the position that we would not let any legislation favourable to the Grand Trunk pass until they would carry out that agreement. The men made no claim respecting pensions, and I am corroborated in that by a speech delivered by my hon. friend (Mr. Mackenzie King) himself, and read from Hansard by the Minister of Justice (Mr. Doherty) last Friday, in which speech the hon. member stated that the men did not regard the question of pensions as being of any importance.


George Gerald King: Not the men,
but the leaders.


Thomas Wilson Crothers: The leaders represented the men.	-


George Gerald King: What my hon. friend has said bears out my position. The hon. member says that he could have had the matter of pensions adjusted if it had been raised at all. That is the position we are in at the moment, the only difference being this, that the question has come to the fore now while is was not to the fore then, for the reason my hon. friend mentioned. The question of pensions was not likely to rise in any extensive way until the company began to deprive their employees of their pensions. When the men found that they were being deprived of their pensions, the question of pensions came very much to the fore. Let me make very clear the fact that while the strike leaders have said, in public and in private, that the question of pensions was a secondary matter as regards this particular strike, they have never said to me, and I am sure they have never said to my hon. friend, nor in public, that according to the terms of the settlement of the strike, the matter of pensions does not enter into the question one way or another. They said that the question of pensions was not discussed in the negotiations; but I am sure not one of them would intimate that when the agreement was reached, they bad assumed anything cither than that all the men would be reinstated in their formed positions and that they would also he entitled to their pensions.
Let me point this out in further reference to the question why this point was not raised last session. One minister mentioned that I was in the' House last year and should have brought forward the question at that .time. As hon, members will recall, I was a member of 'this House only two or three weeks last session. At that time the Grand Trunk Railway legislation bad already been very far advanced; it wais near completion. The minute I Came into the House, I urged that the undue haste with which that .legislation wa's being put through was unwarranted, and I asked the Government to go more slowly in order thait all matters that were pertinent 'should be carefully considered. But we were told that there could he no delay; that the Bill must go through ithialt session. Then, I asked that the agreement should be submitted to Parliament so that we might have an opportunity to examine it, and that Parliament should be called upon to ratify it. But that right was denied. Had the agreement been submitted to Parliament, we could have dealt with this question under the heading in the agreement relating to pensions and superannuation. There is

in the agreement, clause 17, "Superannuation and Pension Fund," and that shows that the Government had the subject under consideration at the time the agreement was being drawn up. What representations did the Government have before them from the men at that time? The other evening I read a resolution that the Canadian delegates of the Railway Conductors of America and Canada adopted and signed in May 1919. I will read only two or three clauses of that resolution, but they are pertinent to this matter:
Whereas, the Government then in power effected a settlement, and it was agreed among other things that the employees would return to work and resume their standing in the service and their seniority rights held by them prior to the strike, as though they had been continuously in the service, and,
Whereas, the company has since the said agreement deprived the said employees who have retired from the service on account of the age limit from the benefits of the Pension Fund, alleging that their participation in the strike in 1910 broke their continuity of service with the company, and,
Whereas, many conductors and other train men that had served the company and the public faithfully and continuously up to fifty-three (53) years, and having reached the age limit, have been retired from the service, and for the reason above stated debarred from the pension which they so sorely need on account of the low wages in effect on this road
prior to the strike of 1910	
Whereas, we are advised that our Government is desirous of acquiring the Grand Trunk railway and Incorporating it as part of our National Railway system, and is negotiating to that end. therefore, he it further,
Resolved, that we respectfully petition our Government not to conclude said negotiations for the purchase of the said Grand Trunk railway without providing for the protection of the pension interests of the employees concerned, and be it further,
Resolved, that we furnish a copy of these resolutions to the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Borden, and to the following ministers of departments, and members of Parliament, namely :-The Honourable Minister of Railways, X B. Reid; the Hon. Minister of Labour, G. X>. Robertson, and J. E. Armstrong, Esq., M.P., chairman of the Railway Committee of the House of Commons.
This is signed by the representatives of (the different organizations. Before this Grand Trunk agreement. tw&s drafted, (the employees affabted made a request to the Government drawing the Government's attention specifically to the fact thait they had not received their pensions. iMy Hon. friend (Mr. Crothers), who succeeded me in ithe office of Minister of Labour, said that had the matter been drawn to his attention he could have had the question of pensions adjusted at that time.


John Dowsley Reid: According to the discussion the other evening, the question of [Mr Mackenzie King.]
pensions -was brought to the attention of the leader of the Opposition -when the negotiations were going on.


George Gerald King: The question of pensions was never brought up in the negotiations between the parties, and I cannot make that statement any more positive than I hate made it. I said that, speaking to me privately, the strike leaders had talked about pensions, pointing out, as all leaders of labour organizations do, that pensions are a mistake from the point of view of organized labour, because the companies that use them take advantage of the pensions to compel a form of continuous service, and if that is to be the use of the pension of course they think it would be better to have the question of pensions ouf of the way altogether.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Did not the hon. gentleman, in the letter which he read to us the other evening, as having been written [DOT]by him to Sir Wilfrid at the time, point out that Mr. Hays was taking refuge behind a provision of the charter or by-laws of the Provident Association-which provision required continuous employment in order to entitle a man to a pension-and because of that refusing the pension to the men who had struck, on the ground that their employment was not continuous? And did not the hon. gentleman, in that same letter and at that same time, point out to Sir Wilfrid Laurier, his chief, that the proper remedy was legislation to amend the charter of the Provident Association and to confer on that association power to grant the pensions notwithstanding the non-continuous employment, the interruption by the strike?


George Gerald King: I am glad my right hon. friend has asked that question, because I think the letter which I wrote to Sir Wilfrid Laurier will, perhaps, show, in words clearer than any that I can now use, what the position was. There is on Hansard a copy of the letter which I wrote to Sir Wilfrid Laurier. After that letter had been completed-and it was written after the strike was over altogether-a postscript was added, the postscript being written a day or two afterwards. The hon. member for Dufferin (Mr. Best) asked the other night if there was a postscript, and I think I said that he was somewhat tin a fhurry to get through. Let me read what the postscript says:
I see by the press that Mr. Hays is proposing to consider as cancelled all obligation

which his company may be under in the way of pensions, partially or all but fully earned by any of the men who may have gone out on strike.
If the question of pensions had been mentioned during the negotiations which I have outlined in the letter to Sir Wilfrid Laur-ier, would I in a postscript have directed Sir Wilfrid's attention to the fact that I saw by the press that Mr. Hays was pro-^ posing to consider as cancelled the obligations which his company was under in respect of pensions to the men who had gone out on strike? The reason for my postscript was that the first I saw of the intention of the company not to live up to its obligations was in the press, and the minute I saw it, I took the position that I take now, namely, that Parliament should see to it that such an attitude on the part of the Grand Trunk towards its employees was made impossible. Let me read the rest of the postscript:
A pension has always been considered a reward of service-not a manacle to fetter personal liberty. Some of the men who have been out on this strike have, I understand, given thirty-four years of their life to the company's service. They, according to Mr. Hays, are to lose every cent of their pensions and start in as new men.
Mark those words, "according to Mr. Hays." Not according to the terms of any agreement or understanding made the time, but according to what Mr. Hays said after the strike was over.
Unless Mr. Hays, or those who control his company, are prepared to recede from this position, my own individual view is that the Parliament of Canada would be justified in refusing to grant any company with which Mr. Hays is concerned any further consideration of any kind, and that the Government should lead Parliament in this view.
It was exactly that which Sir Wilfrid Laurier's Government did. It refused to give Mr. Hays several millions of dollars because he had not reinstated the men.
If, as Mr. Hays will probably say, he cannot legally grant the pension, Parliament might help to rid him of this limitation by enacting legislation which will give him the legal power he requires. It is to be hoped for the sake of the interests of the company, to say nothing of the rights of others, that his directors will not allow him to persist in a stand of this kind.
That is the position I took then; that is the position I have taken all along; that is the position I take now. The only difference is this:	that whereas, as my hon.
friend from West Elgin (Mr. Crothers) has said, we did not know at that time, and he did not know at the time he was in office, that the question of pensions was
going to be raised in this important way, we all know to-day that these men, every one of them, have been deprived of their pensions for a period of ten years, and we know further that this is the last opportunity which Parliament will have to state definitely that the men are entitled to their pensions, and to remove all doubts as to their rights in that matter. That is why I bring this matter up on the third reading of this Bill, which relates to the Grand Trunk Railway company and its acquisition by the Government. Before the railway passes into the hands of the Government I want its just debts to be paid. I do not wish to see tlhese men defrauded of their pensions or the country saddled with a liability which belongs to the Grand Trunk. I want the Grand Trunk to carry out its obligations, and in my opinion it is up to every member of Parliament to see to it that the Grand Trunk Railway Company is compelled !to do so, if any voice of this Parliament can help to bring that about.
Let me read the terms of the Grapd Trunk Railway ComDany Act which gives the Grand Trunk the right to establish this pension fund. "An Act respecting the Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada," assented to 12th April, 1907; Chapter 89, 6-7 Edward VII, (has certain sections regarding the pension fund. Secion 5 is a,s follow:	[DOT] _
The company may, for the purpose of making provision for the payment of allowances to employees after leaving the service, establish a fund to be known as " Grand Trunk Pension Fund." and may from time to time contribute thereto out of the gross earnings of the company such amounts as the directors determine.
Section 6 provides:
Any sum contributed to the said fund by the company shall be considered as, and form part of, the working expenses of the company as defined by the agreement set out in the schedule to the Grand Trunk Act, 1893.
There is the law on the question of this pension fund. It gave to the Grand Trunk Railway Company power to set aside certain funds for a specific purpose, namely, that pensions might be given to the men when they retired from the service. That money was to be regarded as part of the working expenses of the railway. What does the Grand Trunk Railway Company propose? It proposes to take that money, which ought to be charged up to the working expenses of the road and ought to be given to the employees who are entitled to it, and, instead of carrying out its obligations in that regard, to distribute that money among

its shareholders. I say that is a step we should not permit. I say that the Grand Trunk Railway Company should be compelled to regard as part of its working expenses all the money which was set aside in that pension fund up to that date, and to see it applied as it was intended to be applied, to pensions for the men when they retired from the service. I have here a copy of the Rules and Regulations as to the Pension Fund of the Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada, Pensions Department, and I notice in these Rules and Regulations this clause:
It is intended that in future all officers and employees shall be compulsorily retired on reaching the age of 65 years.
In other words, the Grand Trunk Railway Company adopted that pension fund so that they could retire their employees at the age of 65. They were to retire them after they had served a number of years, but were to give them the benefit of a pension. That was the only justifiable purpose of the pension fund, but that purpose is altogether defeated unless we make it perfectly plain that so far as the pension fund iis canoemed the terms of the settlement must be lived up to. All advantages that should accrue to the men through long and continued faithful service, they aire being deprived of an a mere pretext.
What ils said in the Rules and Regulations Concerning service?
" Service " means up to and immediately preceding date of retirement.
I say that the only interpretation that can properly be placed upon the rules and regulations of that pension fund is that men who were in the service of the company become entitled to pensions at the time of Itlheiir restiiremeinit unless there iis some specific statement or specific term in some agreement !to 'the effect that they are to lose their pensions. There was no such clause in the 'agreement that was reached. In a letter I placed on record ;tbe other evening I made that clear from a communication sent by Mr. Hays to me during the course of negotiations. This letter contains a somewhat significant statement, and I shall read it to the committee in order that hon. members may see that even Mr. Hays himself at that time did not contemplate pensions as in question. The letter was addressed to Sir Frederick Borden and myself, and iis dated August 1, 1910:
Gentlemen : I have your favour of date July 31st in re dispute between the Grand Trunk Railway Company and employees in train and yard service, with memo of terms of proposed [Mr Mackenzie King.]
settlement of existing difficulties. I think we are all actuated by the same motives, viz, the restoration of full service on the Grand Trunk railway with every possible consideration to the men who went out on strike.
Then follows something which is irrelevant to this discussion The letter is signed, "Yours truly, Chas. M. Hays, President." Note those words:
I think we are all animated by the same motives, namely, the restoration of full service on the Grand Trunk railway, with every consideration possible to the men who went out on strike.
Can any one in this House for a moment say that depriving the men of their pensions is "restoration 0i full servicer" Gan any one say that depriving the men ot their pension's iis showing "every possible consideration to the men who went out on strike?" The whole action of the Grand Trunk Railway president in this matter is as dishonourable as any act can possibly be, and being dishonourable, it is placing this Parliament and the Government of this country in a false position before all the working classes of this country, for the simple reason thait the Government of the country undertook to vouch for the terms of that agreement. If it comes to a question between an endeavour on the part of the Government to carry out justice, and an endeavour on the part of a private corporation to defeat justice, there can im such case be only one decision to reach in -the interest oif isocd-al justice and public honour, and that is to see thait right and the supremacy of the Government in the matter of carrying out justice are mamtadnied at all costs. That ils the real question at issue at the present moment.
J ust a word as to the consequences of any failure on the part of Parliament to take the step which I am proposing Parliament should take to-night. In the first place, if Paxliiam-emt should refrain from stating in specific language that nothing so far as that strike of 1910 is concerned shall effect, the pension rights of these workingmen, a large number of workingmen throughout the whole of this Dominion and their families as well, may be deprived of pension benefits. Is that a course which this Parliament wishes to take? Do hon. gentlemen opposite desire to be a party to any omission which may have the effect of depriving thousands of working men and their families of pensions to which they are justly entitled? I say" that unless Parliament goes on record in this matter we have no guarantee that the men will get those pensions. The question of the Grand Trunk's liabilities and assets is about to be referred to arbitration.

This is a matter upon which Parliament should express itself independently of arbitration altogether, and it should not be for the arbitrators to decide whether there is a just case here or not, when the honour of ministers of the Crown and of Parliament is at stake. It is for Parliament to protect the rights of the workers in this matter, and we should leave no door open by which those rights can by any possible chance be ignored.
Now let us assume that this matter goes before the Board of Arbitration through any failure on the part of this Parliament to express its opinion, and that the board has nothing to guide it other than such rep e-sentations as may be made to it. And let tte suppose thait The hoard finds there is some legal technicality that prevents it from regarding as a liability this whole matter of pensions. Then what happens? Why, of course, this money which was put into a pension fund for the good of the employees becomes at once an asset of the company, to be counted as part of the property of the shareholders. That, I think, was never intended in the law which was framed for the purpose of establishing the pension fund. There is no justice in such a situation. Then there is the other alternative that possibly the board may find that there is no legal obligation, but that there is one from a moral standpoint. What happens in that event? One of two things may occur: Either the whole matter may drop there, or else the Government, coming into possession of tlhe railways, may be called upon to assume this moral obligation; and then we shall have the question as to who should pay the pensions put up to the Government as the sole owner of the road. Should the Government, as the owner of the road, undertake to make good the pensions, it could only do so at the expense of the taxpayers, and I say emphatically that such a step would under existing circumstances be unfair to the people of the country. These pensions are a liability that belongs to the Grand Trunk Railway Company, and that liability should be met by the company.
My right hon. friend (Mr. Doherty) the other evening was somewhat annoyed, I think-at any rate, his manner seemed to me to imply that he was-because I intimated to the House that I had gathered from his words that what I have said was the course the Government would, pursue. I said I had gathered that my right hon. friend had said, when the subject was up for discussion in connection with the resolution urging that the Government should do all in its power to have the board of arbitration consider the merits of the case, that he would have them consider the matter from the legal and the moral standpoints, and that if the legal point of view were found to be such that the men could not get the pensions, then of course the Government, being sole owners of the railroad, would have to consider the moral obligation. And I gathered from his words that by that he meant and intended to convey this meaning to the mover of the resolution, that there was no necessity to press the resolution because sooner or later the men would get their pensions anyway. My right hon. friend took exception to that statement, and said that I had misinterpreted him or was wilfully trying to do so. Let me read his words and ask the House to judge whether or not I was right in the inference I drew.


Charles Joseph Doherty: Does the hon. gentleman say that I referred to the observation which he has just made as a ground of annoyance? If he will be good enough to look at what I did say he will see that I did resent most strongly the statement he made, that when members of this Government made statements, either to the men or in this House, in reference to the subject, they knew that those statetments did not and could not amount to anything. That allegation I did resent, but I do not think the hon. gentleman will find in my speech that I resented in any way the interpretation which he says he put upon my statements.


George Gerald King: If my hon.
friend construes my words as intending to imply that the Government itself was wilfully deceiving the men, I at once retract any statement that may be open to such a construction. I should be most unhappy to have the minister think that I imputed any motives to the Government. I am not imputing any motives one way or the other. All I ask is that my hon. friend be indulgent enough to listen to his own words and gather from them what the workingmen, who are interested in the question of pensions, would be inclined to consider them to mean. I shall read the hon. gentleman's words, and ask him to say whether they would not mean, to those who are interested in the matter, just what I have suggested, namely, that unless the pensions were granted by the board of arbitration, in all probability the Government itself would assume the responsibility for

them. The minister's remarks will be found in Hansard of April 12, at page 1179 of the unrevised edition. He said:
I am quite prepared to say on behalf of the Government that before that board of arbitrators we shall see to it that the claim that this is an existing liability ds put forward with every facility for establishing it, assuming it to be susceptible of establishment, and that every opportunity will be given to establish it and to press it on the consideration of the board.
I would be willing to go further and to say that I think it will be quite justifiable that it should be pressed not only in so far as it can be sustained as being an absolutely legal claim, but that it should be pressed upon the consideration of the arbitrators from the point of view even of a moral or equitable claim, and that they should be asked'-of course we cannot give that instruction-that it be given every possible weight in order to assure justice being done to these men. What would be the situation if that procedure proved ineffective to obtain the recognition of the claim, it is perhaps unnecessary that we should go into it now? What the position will be when the stock has passed absolutely to this Government, and this Government is in the position of being the sole stockholder, and what will perhaps be the position in view of the provisions of section 17 of the agreement, X think we need not stop now to consider. For the present, the proceeding now to take place affords an opportunity of having this matter gone into and having the justice of the claim that is put forward established. That is the one effective method that is open to us and on behalf of the Government I am quite prepared to undertake that it shall be adopted.
The foregoing were his words in one .place. Here are his words, even more emphatic, in another, and I ask hon. gentlemen :to dnaiw .their own inference as to their meaning. At page 1180 of the same issue of Hansard:
Now in reference to what X said with regard [DOT]to urging this matter as a moral claim, I am not prepared to lay this down as an absolutely legal position; but I myself would feel justified in urging upon the Board of Arbitration that they should consider If. in their opinion, this was a claim so strong in equity that the Government, coming into control of the railway, could not do otherwise than do what it would be a perfectly fair thing to 4C-estimate and determine the value of the claim. I am not laying that down as an absolute legal position to be followed, but I would feel like urging that upon the board. In. that situation, if the Board of Arbitration find that they cannot take into consideration anything but an absolutely legal claim I do not want to undertake to say now what will be done. What I am at present pointing out is, that the Government is in the position of being the sole shareholder of the company with regard, to which company it has been found that there did not exist this strong moral claim. I fancy that the Government in that situation would find itself in the position where it would not necessarily have to consider a claim of that kind.
Any one reading that language can see haw involved At ds. I (confess that rereading 
it alt the moment I gather only one impression from dlt-that iif the board of arbitration do not find that the men are legally entitled to pension and do find that there is a moral obligation somewhere, then in all probability the Government that has to do with the question will find that that moral obligation should be met by paying the men the pensions. Now to come down to the concrete thing, assume that this means anything at all, what happens? This matter is referred to the board. The board finds there is neither a legal obligation nor a moral obligation. Then the men lose their pensions altogether, and the Grand Trunk is exempted from that liability. Or, assume that the board finds that there is a moral obligation but not a legal one, and that the Government, becoming the sole owner of the road, assumes that moral obligations. In th-ait case you have this situation: The men will be paid their pensions but paid out of the public treasury and at the expense of the taxpayers of this country, not at the expense of the Grand Trunk Railway Company. I say that either of these positions is unjust. One is unjust to the workingmen, the other is unjust to the taxpayers. There is only one just position, that is that the company which promised to take back these men without prejudice after the strike should make good that undertaking; and that Parliament, here and now, should take the action that will remove this particular obligation altogether from the arena of doubt. It is unfair and unnecessary that the board of arbitrators should be called upon to consider it. The facts are known, there is no doubt about them, there is no question in disputp one way or the other; it is a matter of simple and honest justice.
Now let me say just this one word in conclusion. My right hon. friend may argue, perhaps, that in suggesting a step of this kind I am taking a somewhat radical position, that I am trying to interfere in some way or other with the sanctity of comitraclt. It is the sanctity of contract that I am seeking to preserve. I saw that contract drafted, I was present alt all the negotiations, I know what was said between the parties; and the whole intention and meaning of thfit contract rwas that the men were to be pu't back into their former positions which meant they remained entitled to their pensions.
I wish to say this further: This question, after a period of ten years, has now come into a very different position in the public

mind from that which it occupied at the time of that particular strike. Then it was a matter between the Grand Trunk Railway Company and its employees, as to which was going to prove more powerful. Now, the question is whether, as between the Grand Trunk Railway Company and the Government of Canada, the company is to have the last word in helping to defeat justice or the Government is to have the last word in helping to maintain it. If there is one thing above another which is rasiponsible for movements in the present day such as those described as direct action or Bolshevist it is attributable to the lack of faith which some people are coming to have in parliamentary institutions as standing for the rights of tlhe people as a whole. Nothing will held to lend color to such an impression more than for the government or for ia parliament-with all the facte and all the knowledge before them in regard ter a concrete ease such as Ithis-to stand back with complete indifference. I say this amendment is necessary on grounds of public honour and social justice. There is only one course for this Parliament to take. We have had this question before us for ten years. This is the last moment at which iwe can settle it in a way that is honourable to the men, honourable to the company, and honourable to the country and its representatives in Parliament, and we istauld take the necessary (step. I hope that hotn. gentlemen opposite will support us in this attitude. I beg to move the following resioluftibn:
That this Bill he not now read a third time hut that it he recommitted to the Committee of the Whole House with instructions to amend the same by adding the following section:
" Any right or interest of any employee ot the Grand Trunk Railway Company existing in the pensions fund prior to the strike of the company's employees which occurred in July, 1910, is hereby declared not to have been affected by such strike or any circumstance or condition arising out of or in connection therewith."
Let me point this out. This amendment does not involve the re-opening of the agreement. We have been told by the Minister of Railways (Mr. Reid) that the agreement is signed, sealed, and delivered, and that nothing that this Parliament says, one way or the other, will cause the Government to re-open it. That being the case it js impossible to insert in the .agreement itself any provision which will convey what is the unanimous view of this Parliament as to the rights of the parties concerned. For that reason I have framed the amendment so that it may be added, 31.1st as was 99
the amendment of the Minister of Justice a few moments ago, as an extra clause to this particular Bill. It expresses the view which, I think, was unanimously expressed by Parliament when a resolution on this subject was discussed a day or two since; it is necessary to maintain justice in this particular situation and to give effect to what is essential to public honour and a sense of public obligation.
Rt, Hon. C. J. DOHERTY (Ministe- of Justice): I had hoped that I had sueceeded the other evening in bringing home to the mind of the hon. gentleman-


Mr. CAHILL:: Hope springs eternal.
Mr. DOlHIBRTY: Certainly hope in the mind of the hon. gentleman seems to spring just as eternal as is that "justice" with regard to which he entertained us the other evening. I was saying I had hoped that I had brought home to the mind of the hon. gentleman the futility of the line which he is taking in what I am desirous of believing to be, and do not question is, an earnest zeal to remedy what he represents to be-and as to which upon its face he makes a strong case-an injustice from which the interested parties are suffering, an injustice we cannot escape from. As the hon. gentleman persists in taking this method he forces upon us the obligation of pointing out what the source of that injustice is.
If these men are suffering from an injustice it is because when he and his then colleagues too-k upon themselves to act as protectors of the men in the agreement which was come to to settle the strike out of which this difficulty arose, they failed to see that that agreement was put in such plain, unmistakable language as would secure to the men all their rights. The hon. gentleman to-night hides himself behind the -men. He says: It was the men who selected the words; we only stood by and approved them. What was his function? What was the purpose of the long letter- with the postscript, with which he favoured us the other evening,-if it iwas not to show that it was his unremitting vigilance that had succeeded in getting this advantageous settlement for the men? We were taken through the details of whom he breakfasted with, how late in ithe evening he called upon gentlemen who had to get out of bed and appear in their dressing gowns, so great was his zeal. And, mark this: He was the man through whom the interpretation of "as -soon as possible" had to come. He has



told us that at that time the leaders of the men talked to him about pensions and, according to his testimony, told him that they did not caie-I have not at hand the text but it will be found in Hansard of last Friday-whether the company treated that particular strike as being an interruption of their employment which would deprive the men of their pensions. The pension subject had, at all events, been up between him and those leaders. How does he explain that he, as the guardian angel of those men, through whom was passed the very terms of the agreement for interpretation, satisfied himself with such words, words so ambiguous that he to-night concedes that there is the gravest possible doubt whether those men have any legal right to pensions? What were the words that he accepted?
But here let me make a parenthesis. 1 am very sorry indeed that the hon. gentleman by his voluntary advocacy of the case of these men should have done so much to bring out the things that tend to weaken that case. When this matter was up upon the resolution of the hon. member for Sim-coe (Mr. Currie), he (Mr. Mackenzie King) and other hon. gentlemen who spoke on that occasion made what looked to me like an extraordinarily strong case; and I want te refrain now from going too much into what the hon. gentleman, as the sell constituted champion, said both the other evening and this evening, because I do not want to find myself in the position of bringing out the weak points of the men's case.
Why was he satisfied to pass on to those men, with as I understand-and I do not want to misrepresent him-the endorsement of the then Government of the day, the agreement as being a satisfactory settlement, and, as he claims, a settlement entitling them to these pensions? I am not going to enlarge upon it, because I do not want by any word of mine to make any clearer the weaknesses in the case that the hon. gentleman's speech has brought out. But, after all, what do the words "put back" mean? The hon. gentleman, except when he had to give us the exact words of the agreement, while arguing about it did not use the words "put back," but he used the word "reinstate." Why did he not have that word put in the agreement? If a man says; "I will put back my servant," that means nothing one way or the other as to whether the servant is put back in the sense of being taken again into employment to make a fresh start, or whether

he is to be put back to just where he was when he went out. In fact, the words imply that there has been an interval; he is now being put back.


George Gerald King: If I may interrupt my right hon. friend, those words "put back" are followed by the other words "in their former positions."


Charles Joseph Doherty: Certainly.


George Gerald King: Why does not my right hon. friend say so?


Charles Joseph Doherty: If a man was a conductor, a brakeman or an engineer, he was put back in his former position-he became a conductor, a brakeman, or an engineer. That is the interpretation of which the agreement accepted by the hon. gentleman is susceptible.


George Gerald King: That is not my interpretation of it.


Charles Joseph Doherty: No, it is not. But let hon. members mark why my hon. friend says that that is not his interpretation of the agreement. He does practically concede that those men have no legal claim. The doubt about the claim is the doubt about the interpretation of the agreement that he accepted and approved. Now, I do not want to' add one word to make that claim any more doubtful than it is, but when Parliament is called upon to take the most unprecedented^and, as I thought I had made clear the other evening, even to the hon. gentleman, most unjustified-action of declaring the existence of an indebtedness and condemning a party to pay it upon what is admittedly a disputed claim, without ever hearing the party against whom the claim is made, I think it imposes upon one the obligation of pointing out just what is the source of this difficulty; and also of pointing out just what a complete confusion of the functions of Parliament and of the courts, and what an absolute absence of apprehension of what is the most elementary condition that justice requires is involved when anybody, no matter haw authoritatively constituted, undertakes to determine a question of right between man and man, or between man and company under such circumstances. When one is face to face with that situation it becomes one's duty to call attention to those features which accentuate the impossibility of this proposal being accepted, -unless indeed we are going to do what my hon. friend has expressed such great apprehension of, that is, add to the causes that are at work to destroy the confidence

of the people of this country in Parliamentary institutions.
Wie are .asked to-night,, as we were asked on Friday afternoon, to decide this disputed question simply because the bon. gentleman says that, he personally knows, the facts and -because certain of the facts may be-I do not know-personally known to. certain members of the House. As I have said already, I.have been very much impressed with the case that has been made. I approach the case in the most sympathetic disposition. But I cannot say that I know the facts. There may be something to be adduced in contradiction of what the bon. gentleman says,-and I do not say that as suggesting that he has not told the story in hie speech and in that letter just as. he is absolutely convinced that the. events took place. But what this thing hangs on is largely verbal, as was elicited by the question of the member for North Perth (Mr. Morphy), and there is room for misunderstanding. Mind you, we are asked to-night to constitute ourselves a court of justice and to determine the right or wrong of a money claim, and that, in effect, without having heard either of the parties, certainly not having heard the party against whom the claim is made.
Mr- CANNON:	Is not the Government
asking the House to do exactly the same thing, that is, ratify the agreement between the Government and the Grand Trunk Railway Company, although we have not heard any of the parties?


Charles Joseph Doherty: 
George Gerald King: I can show
my hon. friend the original letter.


Charles Joseph Doherty: 
George Gerald King: There are two funds, the Provident Fund and the Pension Fund. The minister means the Pension Fund although he is speaking of the Provident Fund.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I mean the fund to
which the hon. gentleman referred when he read the section, and I understand that the obligation of the Grand Trunk was fulfilled when it made certain contribution to that fund. I do not understand that because these men were not paid their pensions, the Grand Trunk ceased to go on making its contributions to to the Pension Fund, and I understand its contributions went into the Pension Fund, whether these men were paid or not. That is what I understand to be the rule laid down as read by the hon. gentleman. If that be so, and the Pension Fund as well as the Provident Fund be carried on after this transfer, if these men are lawfully entitled to be paid, they will be entitled to be paid out of the Pension Fund and out of the Provident Fund whatever else they may be entitled to, and those funds are to be preserved and carried on under this agreement. The hon. member speaks about the Grand Trunk taking that money that ought to have gone to these men and handing it over to the shareholders. As I understand the section as my hon. friend

has read it, the Grand Trunk has gone on paying in money to the Pension Fund; the Pension Fund is richer if these pensions . have not been paid, and if they ought to be paid they would be paid out of this Pension Fund. I am taking my hon. friend's statement as he makes it. I am not taking any responsibility for the correctness of his citations.


Mr. McKENZIE:: Is there in this agreement or in the arrangement between the Government and the Grand Trunk any provision whereby this Pension or Provident Fund will pass to the Government?


Charles Joseph Doherty: I have repeated this so often that it is scarcely necessary to say it again-the impression will still remain the same-what will pass to the Government will be the capital stock of the Grand Trunk Railway Company, and the Government of Canada will be in the same relation to the Provident or Pension Fund as the present shareholders of the Grand Trunk Railway Company are to that fund. The company will be carried on as a company with this appendage of the Pension or Provident Fund carried on just as it was before.


Daniel Duncan McKenzie: What I understand is
that there is an accumulation of money set aside for the purpose of these pensions and so forth, and if there is an accumulation of money, does that pass intact to the Government?


Charles Joseph Doherty: That remains in the
Pension Fund, in the Provident Fund. Those two funds, as annexed or connected associations of the Grand Trunk Railway Company continue to be annexed or connected institutions of the Grand Trunk Railway Company, which Grand Trunk Railway Company continues to own the railroad and to run it. What changes hands is the capital stock of the Grand Trunk Railway Company. I think, therefore, it must be abundantly clear that the question is, whether these men have a claim upon the Pension Fund or the Provident Fund. The Pension Fund and the Provident Fund will continue just as before; and if it should be ultimately decided that for any reason this money ought to be paid, it will properly be paid out of the Pension Fund, or the Provident Fund. I have not come here prepared to discuss the constitutions of these funds, but that is what I gathered from the observations of the hon. members to be the case. What then is the result?
In the first place, I have grave doubts whether this amendment is in order at
all, but I have no desire to insist on that-point; I refer to it merely for the purpose of pointing out how absolutely foreign this is to the Bill before the House. *
The Bill before the House has to do with a contract between this country and the Grand Trunk Railway Company and its sharehouders for the acquisition of its stock. What we are asked to do by the amendment is to declare that
Any right or interest of any employee of the Grand Trunk Railway Company existing in the pension system prior to the strike of the company's employees which occurred in July, 1910, is hereby declared not to have been affected by the said strike or any circumstance or condition arising out of or in connection therewith.
I have difficulty in conceiving how the connection is made as between this Bill and the present amendment, and I submit that for the consideration of the Speaker. In the meantime let me just ask the hon. gentleman: When he makes these frantic appeals to have, justice done at the last moment; asks us, in order to get at the result of what he considers justice, to proceed in the manner indicated at the outset^ namely, to determine the justice of this: claim, without the parties, without the-evidence, and above all, without one word on the part oLthe party that is to be condemned; does he not see that he is absolutely confusing what are the proper functions of Parliament in the way of doing justice with the functions that under the constitution and the law of this country belong to our courts? But, passing that over, does he not himself realize-I appeal to him for the last time-what a gross injustice would necessarily be involved in determining this case without hearing the party we are going to stand here and condemn? The hon. gentleman thinks it would be appalling if it should ever happen that the people of this country should pay those pensions. I said the other evening, and I say it again to-night, that I have not the slightest doubt that the people of this country would infinitely prefer to pay those pensions out of their own pockets to standing by and seeing this Parliament so far forget itself, so. far abuse its functions as to show itself to share the hon. gentleman's absolute incapacity for perceiving that the simplest justice requires that you hear a man or a company before you condemn, and to make the precedent that this Parliament will take upon itself to settle disputed claims ex parte, without any opportunity for discussion, throw it out to the world that everybody who thinks he has a grievance,-and of course, if the party is a

numerous body there will be more suspicion of its being able to exercise a political influence; that every person or number of men who believe themselves to have a claim -may come to Parliament to make their side of the case and Parliament will receive them with open arms, and if they have the good fortune to have an hon. gentleman sitting in this House who is convinced that he has personal knowledge of all the facts and is therefore competent to decide -though he was very close to being a party himself to the making of that agreement-will sit in judgment upon the case and pronounce who is wrong. Parliament in the future will decide in that ex parte way all disputed claims that may arise in this country. It is peculiarly dangerous for Parliament to make such a precedent when the claim is one that affects strongly,-and under' the circumstances very rightly,-the feeling of a very large and important body.
Mr. Speaker, this is an important claim, in regard to which it is important that justice should be done. Notwithstanding what the hon. gentleman has said, we have gone as far as it is possible for us to go to secure justice in the matter, namely, to secure a regular opportunity for these men to be heard. I have not one word to take back of what I said, and whatever may properly be taken from it will in proper time and place, I have no doubt, be implemented. But I have to say here tonight, perfectly frankly, that for my part I will have no share or part in any action which is in effect most absolutely subversive of the settled institutions of this country. I can imagine no greater evil that could come to the people of this country or of any country than that they should see the place and the functions of their courts of justice usurped by the Houses of Parliament, and that they should find themselves subject to having claims against them adjudicated upon by the Houses of Parliament, that these claims should be withdrawn from the jurisdiction of the courts and from the application by the courts of the laws of this country. There may be cases where it might be a right and a proper thing if it be found by judicial decision that in certain cases the laws as they stand do not operate to produce justice, for Parliament to come to the rescue with a remedy. But this is the first time in my experience that I have heard it suggested that it was the proper function of Parliament to decide of its own authority- to decide, so far as the great bulk of us fMr. Doherty.]
are concerned, without knowledge of the actual facts of this case-the claims of one party of men, no matter how important they may be, against another man or another body of men, even if it be a corporation. I have no desire to look for or impute any improper motives in this particular instance, but may I just point out in a general way what the lesson of such an action would be? It is this: That persons who are members of a large and important section of the people of this country, members of a body well organized, and properly so, in defence of their rights in the future will have nothing to do when they think they have been wronged but to come and put their case before this Parliament, and without provision for the hearing of those against wdiom their claims are made they will get from this Parliament, under guise of legislation, a judgment condemning the adverse party. The hon. gentleman has referred to unrest and to the effect failure to act in the manner he suggests might have on that unrest. For my part I cannot conceive of anything that would he more apt to create the most absolute lack of confidence in this Parliament and in our parliamentary institutions than that we should be guilty of such a usurpation oi power. We must face what would be said, and what would be pleaded-and the circumstances would give! colour to it, -namely, that we were doing this because of the great power and great influence of this large section of the people to whom the men here concerned belonged and whose sympathies are entirely with the men here concerned.
Surely we do not want to give circulation to that idea. Surely we do not want to create the belief that justice is to be administered in accordance with the political power that can be wielded by bodies of men who may be interested in particular cases.
I am satisfied that the well-thinking, sane workingmen of this country will realize what an infinitely valuable' privilege it is for them to have the security and protection of the courts. If we intervene to-day to deal with this claim upon their statement and out of deference to their feelings, what guarantee will they have that tomorrow, when they may have difficulties with some of the very great and powerful bodids with whom they more or less frequently come in contact-bodies which are reputed, at all events, to exercise some influence over Parliament-they will not find themselves exposed to the danger of Parliament undertaking, without hearing their views, to wipe

out their claim, because of a belief, honest if you will, on the part of certain members of Parliament, that the contentions of the adverse parties were sound, and just,, and well-founded?
No, Mr. Speaker. When we appeal in the name of justice, let us remember that real justice is in the keeping of the different bodies that are concerned with the control of the government of the country in their proper spheres. There rightly belongs to this Parliament a legislative function, as. there rightly belongs to the courts a judicial function; and to night we are asked not only to usurp the judicial function of the courts, but, after we have done so, to act in a manner in which no court in any British country would ever dream of acting: we are asked to sanction and lay down the principle that henceforth in this country disputed claims shall be determined and adjudicated without hearing the parties against whom they are made, and without giving them any opportunity to open their mouths.	.
And what is the appalling consequence which it is said is liable to ensue if we do not do this? The awful consequence is that if it be found that these men have a moral and not a legal claim perhaps the people of Canada may have to pay these pensions. As I understand from the hon. gentlemen's expose of the case, it is probably the Provident Fund that in any event will pay the pensions if they have to be paid. But even if that be not so, I say , and it is my last word-that I will resolutely refuse to consent to such an abuse of Parliament's power, perpetrated at a moment when the gravest possible suspicions would be justified by its being exercised. Are not the circumstances worthy of remark? For the last ten years there 'have been Parliaments in this country,, as there have always been. During that time there was a Grand Trunk Railway Company in full operation, swaying a great influence, and being in * position to exercise that influence in elections as well as in other directions; and the hon. gentleman asks this Parliament to do now what could have been done during those ten years. It is only at the last moment, when the shareholders of the company cease to be such, when this Government has come to be die only shareholder, when consequently there can be no question of political influence in connection with the company that would affect in any way persons in this House or in the country,.-it is only at- that moment
that the hon. gentleman wakes up with a burst of heroic declamation and declaration that justice must be done, and asks Parliament to hasten to pronounce in favour of the only element concerned which in future is going to exercise political influence, and to render judgment without being in a position to act judicially, not having heard both parties.
I ask you, Mr. Speaker, could Parliament be asked to put itself in a more false position? Gould Parliament be asked to do anything more calculated to destroy public confidence in itself and in parliamentary institutions? I ask hon. members this question in the name of those very principles of justice,, properly understood, to which the hon. gentleman appeals; in the name of the respect which we all owe to the House of which we are members; in the name oi the respect which we owe to the well-established institutions of this country,, institutions which we have inherited from the Mother Country, and under which it is impossible that any man should arrogate to himself the right to pronounce condemnation against those who have not been afforded an opportunity of presenting their side of a dispute.
M,r. JEAN J. DENIS (Joliette): I should like to ask the Minister a question. In con nection with this matter there are -three alternatives. The pensions have to be forfeited, or they will be paid by the Grand Trunk Company, or they will be paid by the country. I desire to know which of these alternatives the Minister is advocating.


Charles Joseph Doherty: There are limits to mj power of conveying my meaning. I have endeavoured to the best of my capacity to convey to the mind of the hon. gentleman and other hon. members what I am advocating.' If I. have not succeeded I. must attribute my failure to. one of two alternatives, -which of them is the right one I do not know: either I have not the capacity of penetrating into the mind of the hon. gentleman, or his mind has not the capacity of absorbing what I have said. For either of these alternatives I know of no remedy. .


Mr. F. F. PARDEE (West Lambton):: Mr. Speaker, I fully realize the fact, as was pointed out by the hon. member for Cape Breton North and Victoria (Mr. McKenzie) and the Minister of Justice (Mr. Doherty) that there might be some difficulty in bringing this particular claim before the Board of Arbitration without something enabling the Government to do so. Although

the Minister of Justice said he did not propose, any more than was possible, to find fault with the speech delivered by the leader of the Opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King), nevertheless for an hour and a half he endeavoured to urge all that he possibly could against the arguments contained in that speech. Might I say that in my opinion in the minister's speech the mountain has laboured and brought forth a mouse. The great argument which he has advanced time and again to-night-iterated and reiterated-is the awful - consequences that would ensue were we who represent the people to take into consideration the claim which a considerable portion of the community had against a road that'this Government is taking over. The minister seems to regret and bewail the fact that our courts should be deprived of the right to adjudicate between the parties. He asked, was ever such a thing heard of? He went on to argue that the case is unprecedented. I admit with him-and I think many hon. gentlemen on both sides will admit-that the case is unprecedented. Why is it unprecedented? The Government, for some reason best known to themselves-is in an extraordinary hurry decided to take over the Grand Trunk Railway. If I recollect aright at the time that decision was reached, the railway was not supposed to have very much equity in it. Nevertheless, though there was no particular equity there, the Government, out of the goodness of its heart, appointed a Board of Arbitration- for what reason I never could conceive- saying to that board: We have taken this road over but to those people you shall not pay more than a certain amount of money and vre will guarantee certain stock. It certainly was unprecedented, absolutely unprecedented, for the people of Canada to take over something and guarantee something that had not value. Is it not unprecedented also for the Minister of Justice to say to the men who have put forth their claim in a just, proper and fitting way before the people and have substantiated it: We have only heard the case ex parte. For the minister to say this is only a play upon words, a splitting of hairs. The House and the country has known the facts lor years and years, ever since the strike was undertaken and settled. The question has been openly discussed during all that time and both sides have been fully heard. Therefore this is no ex parte hearing. Every member of the House is conversant with both sides of the question, and the Government, more particularly, is conversant with 
every claim that the men have presented. Truly, the matter is unprecedented for the very reasons that I have given to the House: the Government has stepped in, has taken over a property, and is paying to the shareholders of that property something to which-to my mind -they are not and never were entitled, and at the same time taking from the pockets of employees enough money to cover the payment. It is all very well for the Minister of Justice to stand here and advance the contention he did when the facts are as apparent as daylight. He refers to the leader of the Opposition as a protector of the men; and as one who was concerned in the making of the agreement that was entered into. Therefore, he contends it was. the fault of the Liberal Government that the pensions to the men were not taken care of. Sir, it is plain that upon the present Government rests the responsibility of seeing that these men are paid or otherwise. But in order to shirk their plain duty the Government is shifting the blame onto the Liberal Administration and saying; We are free; they made the bargain and we did not, and hence we will do nothing. That is absolutely their argument here tonight. In so many words that is the argument of the Minister of Justice; and I submit, 'Sir, that it is unworthy of the minister or the Government he represents.
What are the facts? There was a settlement made with the men. And in that connection the Minister of Justice asked: What was the leader of the Opposition doing, what was his business there? The object of the leader of the Opposition in taking part in those proceedings was to endeavour as between the men and the company, to settle a matter that was of great interest to the people of this country,
*a matter that affected every man, woman and child in the Dominion. He was, Sir, doing his whole duty as a member of the Government of that time to the people whom he represented. I would commend his example to my hon. friends opposite. I would suggest to them that they should do as much justice to the people as the leader of the Opposition did when the opportunity was open to him.
The men's claim appears to me so patent, so self evident and so absolutely legitimate that it is only a case of " pig on pork " to pile up the argument in support of their contention. The men went out on strike. Many of those who went out remained out but a very short time, and returned to duty, we know in some cases, at the re-

quest of the company. They did so because they were old and valued employees of the company, and the company was under the impression that their presence on the road might help to a large extent to settle the grievances as between themselves and the men. Those men are asking to-day that they be paid their pension but are debarred from receiving it. A tentative agreement was drawn up, and let me cite the first portion of it from a statement which is headed " Memorandum of certain Railway Conductors against the Pension Fund of the Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada" :
The company were thereby empowered to make payments to the pension fund out of the gross revenue as part of the working expenses in priority to all the ordinary and preferred creditors of the company. The claims upon this fund were thereafter a substantial term in the conditions of employment and were not a gratuity or bounty which the company were entitled to give or withhold at their whim or pleasure.
The labour of these men contributed to swell the gross earnings of the company, and was sunk in them for the benefit of others if this claim goes unrecognized. That is a short statement of the facts. It was not a gratuity, it was not a bounty, it was an absolutely executed contract as between the Grand Trunk Railway Company and the men, that in consideration of performing certain services-which the men did perform-a pension should be paid to them in their old age.
That was the understanding, Mr. Speaker, upon which these men entered the employ of the Grand Trunk Railway Company, that was the 'understanding they worked under for years. TJpon being taken back they *were promised that that understanding would never be broken, and they are to-day under the terms of that understanding still entitled to their pensions. Why do I say that? Because, 'Sir, the. Grand Trunk Railway Company agreed-and I am not concerned as to the length of time that elapsed, as to when the men were to be taken back or otherwise, the Grand Trunk Railway Company, I say, even if they did not set it out in black and white, tacitly agreed, there is not a shadow of a doubt, as I have already stated, viz:
"Whereas the Government then in power effected settlement, and it was agreed, among other things, that the employees would return to work and resume their standing in the service and their seniority rights.
"Their standing in the service." What does the word "standing" or "status"
mean, Sir? In my humble opinion, the whole case turns upon what is to be interpreted from the clause which practically re-engages those men? The interpretation, as I have taken it from the Imperial dictionary-which, I am told, is by Order in Council the dictionary adopted by the Government in order to get the meaning of words and the substance thereof-is in these words:
Status n. (L) 1. Standing or position as regards rank or condition. "A phrase	
decisive of a man's social status". O. W. Holmes.-2. Position of affairs-status quo, the condition in which the thing or things were at first; as, a treaty between belligerents, which leaves each party in status quo ante helium, that is, with the same possession and rights they had before the war began.
The same status, the same right, and in the same position that they occupied before the war began. The position they occupied "before the war began" was that they were employed in certain capacities, they received certain wages under contract, they, moreover, under that contract, knew that certain sums were paid into the Provident or Insurance Fund that would enure to their benefit upon their ceasing their employment in a legitimate way. They ceased their employment, I will admit, only to a degree. But, for the sake of argument, even although they did cease their employment they went back to service at the request of the oompany to resume their old status; in other words, to be put back in every particular where they were before.
I submit to this House, and I am not afraid, notwithstanding the fact that the Minister of Justice seems to be so absolutely appalled at the results that may flow therefrom-I am not in the least afraid, Sir, if simple justice is done to those men, as is prayed by them, that the people of this country will have anything but commendation for the Government that does it. When you take a large body of such intelligent men, some of them even intellectual men, men of the very highest class of skilled labour, and say to them: We as a government are taking over that road, although we know you have certain claims outstanding, and although we and the people of this country know that a large amount of money is being paid to shareholders that should not be paid, and part of it is your money-all I have to say to any government that takes such a course is: They had better beware.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Oh, oh.


Frederick Forsyth Pardee: It is not a matter to be lightly trifled with. I hear some of my hon. friends laugh "the loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind." When a government, and a parliament which is the highest court of justice in the land, so insult and wantonly throw aside the claims that are put before them, then4 again I say that such government and parliament had better beware.
I submit, Sir, that in so far as the argument put up in support of the claims of these men goes, it proves beyond perad-venture, no matter to what extent the Government may say that the blame for this matter should be shouldered off onto the old government, that it is a living question with the Government of to-day, and that by no subterfuge or play upon words can they shift the blame from their shoulders. Extraordinary conditions require extraordinary remedies, and I assert that this Government can, if they so please, even if it is necessary to pass a certain Bill, enact that the claims of these men shall be taken into consideration, and I consider that it would be dealing out but even handed justice to these men were the Government to take that course.
I submit again, Sir, that the claim of the men is just and fair, and that if the money that should have gone to those men will go either to the shareholders of-if the argument of my hon. friend the Minister of Justice is likely to prevail-to the Government themselves, by reason of the fact that the Provident Fund is handed over and is enriched to the extent by which these pensions have been diverted, then either the shareholders or the Government will get the benefit of that money to the detriment of the men who are putting their claims before Parliament for that money. Therefore in right and justice the amendment of the hon. leader of the Opposition should carry.


Hon. ARTHUR MEIGHEN (Minister of the Interior):: Mr. Speaker, although I
have had no difficulty at all in hearing the hon. member for Lambton (Mr. Pardee)
I have had some difficulty in discerning what contribution he was making to the facts or to the arguments that bear on the amendment.


Frederick Forsyth Pardee: The results will show that.


Arthur Meighen: All I heard was an interminable repetition of a conclusion without the assistance of either a collation of
Mr. [Pardee.]
evidence or any deduction therefrom. But like many others without anything substantial	to	add to a controversy,he succeeded in saying sufficient to iquite negative and destroy the conclusion	that	he so often repeated.
If there was anything which he emphasized more than anything else in the course ,of his address it was that the employees of the company, parties to the agreement negotiated by the present leader of the Opposition in 1910, were in possession of k hard-and-fast-he said-binding contract, absolutely entitling them to this remedy, absolutely entitling them to this claim. (My hon. friend did not say that? Why, that is about all he said throughout his speech; his speech was a repetition of that sentence over and over again.
, Mr. PARDEE: The minister is trying to ,make another play -upon words in ofder to get away from something. I said nothing of the kind. I said that there was an agreement; that if it was not there hard-and-fast, it certainly was there by implication.


Arthur Meighen: Well, I will ask my hon. friend to hunt Hansard to-morrow for his implication. If a hard-and-fast contract is there-we will come to the implication in .a moment-if the men have their Tights absolutely intact as my hon. friend describes them, then there is no need of the amend-,ment; the Bill is exactly right as it stands. .All legal claims against the -Grand Trunk .Railway Company are preserved by the enactment and by the agreement; all legal claim-s can be established before the board. Everything that is hard-and-fast to which .anybody is absolutely entitled is a liability of the -Grand Trunk, and that the Grand Trunk must meet. 80 that there is no need whatever for any amendment to the Bill, even to secure the purpose that the hon. member has in mind.
' Now, he says that it is there either byexpress words or by implication; it is a -part, he says, of the -settlement. Is that his understanding? That is what the leader *of the Opposition urges; it is implied in [DOT]the -contract; it is a necessary implication by it. If that is the case, then too they -can recover. Does the leader of the Opposition say that it is implied? Does he say -that it is part of the original settlement? -Or that it is not? -If it is, he knows that recovery can yet be made. Either it is or it -is not. If it is no part of the settlement, then there is no right to go on; there is no -need for the amendment; there is nothing

to root an amendment upon. If it is part of the original settlement, they can recover.
The hon. gentleman says: I provided for all this in 1910, hut the Grand Trunk did not live up to it; I made it part of the settlement because I said that the men must be restored-or rather, that they must be taken back-but I meant by those words that they should be taken back to their former positions and surrounded by all the advantages they had enjoyed in.those positions. I would like the leader of the Opposition to follow tne; I assure him if he does he will be led out of the tangle into which he has got himself to-night. It was part of the settlement, he said, that the men should be restored to their former positions [DOT]and be vested with all the rights which they formerly enjoyed, including the right to pension. That is what he intended by it. Is that his position? Or is it not? If we do not know whether it is or is not, there is nothing that we can proceed upon. .But surely he knows whether he intended by that agreement that the pension right should remain intact, should be part of the settlement; that the agreement should so express it. Is that correct?


George Gerald King: I do not know whether or not my hon. friend is addressing questions to me, but if he is-
. Mr. MEIGHEN: I thought I was.


George Gerald King: If he is, let me again state that the agreement was drawn between the company and the employees. What were the intentions of the parties is something that my hon. friend will have to ascertain from the parties themselves. I have given to the House .what I took to be the only meaning that could possibly attach to the negotiations.


Arthur Meighen: Which was?


George Gerald King: Which was that the men were to be put back in their former positions, and that I understand to include their right to pensions and lall 'the rest of it. But the company have shown, by refusing to give the men the pensions, that they do not take that position. Inasmuch as the [DOT]company have taken the position that the men will not get their pensions, and have sought to. support their contentions by a legal technilcally, .and since this Government and this Bair filament are conscious of that fadt, we should not allow this chance to pass to prevent the men from being defrauded through a tachniealdlty.


Arthur Meighen: I am not talking about what the claim of the company is; I want
to get at what the hon, member understood by his agreement, the agreement *which he negotiated between these parties in 1910?
, Mr. MACKENZIE KING: I did not negotiate the agreement; I was a witness to it.
, Mr. MEIGHEN: Just a witness? My hon. friend's relation to the whole situation is diminishing every bour. Now, he was only a witness; he did not even negotiate the agreement; he was no party to it; it does not matter what he thought of it; it is what the men intended by the agreement that counts. But he says that so far as he is concerned he believed the agreement meant that the men should be restored to their pension right as well as to every other right. That is his position to-night. Will this House believe me when I say that the hon. gentleman told the House an .exactly opposite thing when the matter was discussed in 1911? He told this House in 1911 that he did not understand the agreement to include a restoration to pension right. ,On that occasion-I quote from Hansard of February 10, 1911-he was answering an inquiry of the hon. member for South .Sinrcoe of that day, Mr. Lennox. I shall have to read this at some length, because it shows what was in the mind of the hon. member when he spoke on that occasion:
What I want to call the attention of the minister to is that it is a. very important point whether the men were reinstated in the broadest sense of the term or were being put back as new men.
, Just exactly the point we have in mind to-day.
X can hardly conceive that it was contemplated that they were to be put back as new men. Are we to understand from the minister that that distinction was not adverted to at all and that he did not take that into consideration? I certainly would think that it would he the object of the minister to see that the agreement was in such a form as that the men, when they were taken back, would get the same positions that they would have occupied if no strike had taken place. Otherwise, it would be an idle sham, and it would deceive the men. If it meant that a man who had been in the service of the company for twenty years or more, and who would be entitled to a pension, was to be taken back as a new man. and not to be entitled to this pension, it would certainly be a most unfortunate result.
Mr. Lennox wants to know whether he, the then Minister of Labour (Mr. Mackenzie King) understands that the restitution provided by the agreement was a restitution to pension rights and all other rights. Does the then Minister of Labour, tire present leader of the Opposition, say: Yes, that is

the agreement that was negotiated; I was a witness to it; I was there between the men? Does he say : Certainly, pensions were intended to be included; that was part of the settlement? That is what he says to-night; that was his understanding of it. Did he say that then? I quote from his reply to Mr Lennox:
As regards, pensions, when the matter was under consideration, the leaders of the men who were negotiating on behalf of the employees took the position that they did not care about pensions one way or the other,-
Would he have given that answer if he had thought that pensions were a right to which the men had been restored by the agreement?


George Gerald King: Read on.
Mr. MEtIGHEN: I will read on, until the hon. member will ask me to quit, I think, because it gets a lot plainer on the next page:
-the employees took the position that they did not care about pensions one way or the other, that if the company cared to regard them as having violated its agreement with them to the extent of breaking any regulation which governed pensions, the company was perfectly free to put that interpretation upon it. I was rather surprised myself at them taking that stand, but they did take it and they gave me to understand that in so far as pensions were concerned, if they had forfeited the pension by going out, and if the company cared to put that interpretation upon it, they were free to do so.


George Gerald King: Read on.


Arthur Meighen: I will read everything the hon. member said until the debate closed, because everything is consistent with this and nothing else.


George Gerald King: Read the next statement.


Arthur Meighen: The next statement is
this,-but I had better read Mr. Lennox's in between:
Mr. Lennox: Am I to understand the minister to say that his mind is clear that those who represented the men were at least indifferent as to the question of what position the men would occupy as regards pensions? That is what I understand the minister to say: that those who represented the employees of the railroad companies on that occasion expressed themselves indifferent as to whether the company should consider the pensions forfeited or not. I may say to the minister-of course, with every deference to what he says-that unless he is absolutely clear that that was the understanding, I would be surprised to hear that such was the case.
The information I have got so far, and I am endeavouring to get more exDlicit information, is that the men throughout- the country generally, and I understand, also, those who represented them-thoroughly understood at that
[Mr. Meighen-1
time that except as to those who had been guilty of acts of violence such as expressed in the agreement, it put an end to all existing disputes and difficulties, arid that the men would be restored to all the rights and privileges that they had before the strike had been declared.
Mr. Lennox says: That is what I understood. The leader of the Opposition says to-night: That is what I understand. Did he say that m answer to Mr. Lennox?


George Gerald King: Just, read the next sentence.


Arthur Meighen: Certainly I will read it; I promised to do so:
Mr. King: I am perfectly clear in my own mind as to what took place at the time, and I remember that the subject of pensions was never mentioned in any of the joint discussions between the men and the company.
Why did he not say:	Yes, certainly, it
means pensions, it was intended to include everything? That is what he says now when he is in opposition. Why did he not say that when he was in power? Why did he not say that a few months after the settlement, instead of waiting until now when nearly all the participants are dead?


George Gerald King: Finish the
sentence.


Arthur Meighen: Certainly. (Reading):
I remember, also, quite distinctly, that, apart from the joint discussion that took place, and at which the Minister of Militia and myself were present, the leaders of the men spoke nothing about the question of pensions. I brought that up myself.
He brought it up, and in his mind he made it clear that the men were entitled to pensions. Why did he not say so to Mr. Lennox? He told Mr. Lennox that the men were indifferent to pensions, and he led the whole House to believe that pensions were never intendd to be part of the matter at all.


George Gerald King: I am sure my hon. friend does not wash entirely to misrepresent me. [DOT]


Arthur Meighen: I am only reading what my hon. friend said.


George Gerald King: I have said all along-


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: Order. The hon. member has already spoken on one or two occasions in this debate, and if he wishes to make a statement he is certainly not in order.
Mr.' MACKENZIE KING: Very well, I am glad to have the record speak for itself.


Arthur Meighen: Instead of acquiescing in the understanding Mr. Lennox put forward that the men would never have agreed to anything that did not involve or imply a settlement of the question of pensions, my hon. friend takes a different tack altogether and says: No, I did not argue that pensions were included; pensions were never mentioned; I brought the question of pensions up myself, and the leaders told me that they did not care about pensions at all. Is that answer consistent with his position to-night? But if that is not clear enough, will the House listen while I read the next sentence, and we shall see whether that is consistent with his position to-night:
Mr. Lennox: To whom does the hon. gentleman refer as leaders?
Mr. King: Mr. Garretson, Mr. Lee, Mr. Berry, and Mr. Murdock. I think all of these gentlemen took the same position on the matter. The question of pensions was a separate matter altogether, and it was not one that entered into the settlement one way or the other.


George Gerald King: That is absolutely true.
Mr. MiEIGH1EN: Absolutely true on the 10th February, 1911, that the question of pensions was a separate matter wholly from this agreement and that pensions did not enter into the question one way or the other, and still absolutely true to-night that in his opinion the agreement involved the settlement of the question of pensions. That both conclusions, - diametrically opposed, are entirely true, is the position of the leader of the Opposition.


George Gerald King: No, it is not. My hon. friend is not correct.


Arthur Meighen: I am agreeable, Mr. Speaker, if the House will agree, if the hon. member will now state which position he takes; and if he can reconcile them both, I will give him an opportunity of endeavouring to do so.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: This proceeding is
highly irregular; but if it is the will of the House that the hon. gentleman shall have unanimous leave to speak again, I shall put the question to the House.


Some hon. MEMBERS:: Yes.


Arthur Meighen: On that point.


George Gerald King: 
Arthur Meighen: The hon. member has
repeated that the matter was not mentioned. That is not the point. The question is whether the settlement involved the question of pensions; it does not matter what was discussed before. The settlement is what wa$ in the mind of the leader of the Opposition as regards the right to pensions resting upon that argeement.
Mr. MtAlCKENZIE KING: That the men should have them.


Arthur Meighen: But he told the House in 1911 that the settlement of pensions was a matter apart from the agreement altogether. What are his words?:
The question of pensions was a separate mat-terter altogether, and it was not one that entered into the settlement one way or the other.
There is no getting out of that. The hon. member might just as well admit it.


George Gerald King: I do not.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. member told the House that he understood by that agreement of 1910 that the question of pensions was not involved in it at all.


George Gerald King: In the negotiations.


Arthur Meighen: In the settlement of
the matter; he was referring to the settlement as made.


George Gerald King: I was not.


Arthur Meighen: The hon. member was asked distinctly by Mr. Lennox whether he had secured that by the agreement, and he told Mr. Lennox that the agreement did not cover it at all; that the question of pensions was separate altogether. Now we are in this position: Either the hon. member was right in his view in 1910 and is wrong now; or he is right in his view now and was wrong then. Let us take the first and see how it bears on his amendment. If he was right in 1910 and is wrong to-day in that he said in 1911 that he had not discussed the matter of pensions at all; that it was not included in the agreement; that it was a separate matter altogether, how in the world does he justify his amendment now? 'He would not try to justify it if it was not part of the agreement of 1910; there is nothing in the world for his amendment to rest on; there is no peg for it to hang on.
Let us dismiss that and take up the [DOT] second proposition. Supposing he is right now and was wrong in 1910, that the question of pensions was settled by this agreement, was included in it and that the men had a right to pensions and they have not been paid yet. If that be the case, that is all there is to it. All the men have to do is to go before a tribunal and establish that and they will get their pensions. I do not need to labour that, surely. The hon. member for West Lambton agrees with the hon. member (Mr. Mackenzie King) tonight, but he contradicted that hon. gentleman's statement of 1911. If the hon. member for West Lambton is right, the amendment should be voted down as entirely superfluous, aside from its other lamentable features that I think make it unworthy even of the consideration of the House.
Oh, he says, I am so anxious about these men. I read Hansard just sitting here tonight, and really the language of the hon. member was pathetic in 1911 when he was describing the throes of anguish that he went through and the perils that he encountered in getting this great settlement of the question. He indeed begged, in the presence of the Speaker of the House, that no other member of Parliament of that day would ever have to encounter the perils he encountered or go through what he went through in standing between these two great warring factions and trying to bring them together. He says: I did all that, but the Grand Trunk did not carry out its agreement in that it refused to re-establish the men in their pension rights. In the whole course of the fifteen months of the agreement and up to the time the Laurier

Government went out of power, the hon. member never brought to the attention of this House that the Grand Trunk had broken their agreement in declining to reestablish the pension rights of the men. But, he says, the Grand Trunk came to the Government and wanted millions of money, but we would not give it to them because they had not carried out the agreement that they bound themselves to carry out. At that time certainly they had not carried it out; they had not put the men back at all. That waited for the next government to accomplish. Well, they had not carried it out, and so he says: When the Grand Trunk came to us for millions of money we turned a deaf ear to them and said, "we cannot listen to you at all because you have not carried out your agreement." Would it not be interesting to know what these millions were for that the Government in 1911 was going to give the Grand Trunk only for the fact that they had not carried out their strike agreement of the year before? What millions were in contemplation to be advanced to the Grand Trunk at that time? It was never made known to the country that millions were waiting to be given to the Grand Trunk if they only carried out their agreement with their employees entered into with the hon. member. In one vray it may be a good thing perhaps that this difficulty arise and that the hon. member became the obstacle to legislation that certainly could not have been of very much advantage to us. It is a pity that something of that kind had not arisen about seven years before for it might have saved this country a whole lot of trouble now. But what does the hon. member mean by saying?-We refused to pass money Bills giving the Grand Trunk money, because they did not carry out their agreement, but we passed other Bills granting other things to the Grand Trunk, allowing them to buy other roads and invest in their bonds, and guarantee $30,000,000 of stock for the Great North Western Railway. How is it that this matter of eternal justice is of such consequence that it was sufficient to stop the passage of great money Bills granting millions to the Grand Trunk, but was not of sufficient importance to stop the passage of a Bill enabling the company to buy the Great North Western and another road? Why did the hon. member stand in the way of one Bill and not in the way of another? If it was worth while for him to stand in the way of an important Bill, surely it was more important that he should stand in the

way of a less important Bill. But all the Bills were of importance and no doubt essential to the Grand Trunk that the hon. member let several pass and never said a word. The others that he says he dropped we never heard of until now.


George Gerald King: Do you want to know why?


Arthur Meighen: II should like to hear.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: T must remind the hon. member that he has already spoken on his own amendment three successive times, and II must apeal that the rules of the House be observed.


Arthur Meighen: I do not think, Mr. Speaker, that the hon. member at least should complain of your ruling. Now in the next place-aside entirely from the incongruity of the whole thing, the helplessness of the position the hon. member in trying to claim one thing in one breath and another in another-*what would be the position of this Parliament if such an . amendment were to pass? What could the Grand Trunk say to us, what could the citizens of countries everywhere say to this Parliament if we accepted this amendment? They would say to us first of all: The claim of the men, if it exists, is against the Provident and Pension Fund of the Grand Trunk. Now I do not know just -what responsibility the Grand Trunk has for that Provident and Pension Fund, but it would occur to me as pretty obvious that there were others who were interested in that besides the Grand Trunk. It would appear to me that the other beneficiaries were largely interested in the Provident and Pension Fund. Is Parliament possessed of information as to the various constituent claims and their relative rights in the Provident and Pension Fund, sufficient to justify Parliament in arrogating to itself the functions of a court of justice, and simply on the motion of the leader of the Opposition dispensing with all those rights, wiping out everything that may exist, and fastening on this Provident and Pension Fund a claim that possibly others interested in it may dispute altogether aside altogether from the claims of the Grand Trunk Railway Company? Certainly Parliament is in possession of no such information, and I venture to assert there is not one hon. member of this House, not even the leader of the Opposition, who, it he were constituted a judge in this matter, is to-day in possession of evidence to say
what other claimants there may be ai against that Provident Fund who have a right to consideration, and whose claims should not lightly be wiped away without their being here, apart altogether from the Grand Trunk itself. Certainly the Grand Trunk could say to us, and every citizen of every country could say to us for all time: It does not matter what property rights we have, you dispose of them without letting us make a claim to them and without hearing us; after you have created courts of justice to dispose of such claims, you take from those courts the functions you vested in them, and arrogate them to yourself: is that a good country to invest money in, is that a country to which we should give the credit of our financee? It would appear to me that the answer would be obvious.
Then in the next place the Grand Trunk and everybody else could say to us: Why did you not do this before? If you wanted to make a claim against us, if you wanted to stand behind these men and make yourselves identical with them in interest and force their claim against us why did you wait nine years before you did it? You say that there are certain implications that the circumstances of the time gave a moral claim to certain parties to that agreement. Why did you wait till almost 'all had gone to their graves? Sir Frederick Borden was one of the parties to the agreement; he is now dead. Mr. Hays was there, and the hon. member berates the memory of Mr. Hays, long since in his grave. Mr. Wain-wright was a prominent party to the negotiations; he also is dead. Sir Wilfrid Laurier w>as the party to whom the hon. member directed his interminable letter; he is dead. And we are not even favoured with Sir Wilffrid Laurier's reply to that epistle. The parties to that controversy have passed away, and after all that has taken place, the hon. member says that now is the time to enforce eternal justice and for us who survived to say that we know all the circumstances, that we know the claim of the men is all right, and that nothing can be said against it, and we are going to decide it now once for all. For fifteen months the hon. member sat in this House as a member of the Government and never asserted this right. His party sat in opposition for eight years more and never suggested that there was such a right. Last year, when this Parliament was fixing the terms of the agreement, authorizing its provisions one by one that were to be made between the Grand Trunk and the Government of

Canada, the hon. member sat silent and never (thought there was any claim he should urge at ,all. What would he answer to the Grand Trunk when the Grand Trunk says to him: Why didn't you, before this matter came to us for consideration, have at least the courtesy to get up and say in Parliament that some such clause as this should be embodied in the agreement so that we could put it before our shareholders for consideration? What would be the answer of the hon. member? No answer at all. The political merit of the thing from his point of view had not dawned on him at that time, and did not until this session.-that is the only answer he could give that would ever be believed by any one. Now he comes and says: It is true that a year ago when I was at full liberty to move that a clause be inserted in the agreement fastening a civil liability upon the Grand Trunk I failed to move it, I failed to see that such a clause was laid before the other parties to the contract, I failed utterly even to .mention the subject in Parliament. The agreement was made pursuant to the authority of this Hopse, and this House bound itself in honour to accept it if accepted by the Grand Trunk Company. That agreement authorized by Parliament, was submitted . by this House and by the country to the Grand Trunk as embodying our view of what was fair and right to be included, and we said to the Grand Trunk: These are our terms; if you agree to them we are bound. The Grand Trunk did agree to them. Now, after all that has taken place, the hon. member comes and says that now is the time to change the whole thing and to inject into the agreement, after the event, a clause he never thought of during all these nine or, ten years.
One would have thought that the debate that took place in the House on Friday night last would have satisfied the hon. gentleman forever of the absurdity of the position he has taken in this matter. I do not recall in the history of Parliament a more absurd and incongruous suggestion that that there should be attached to the agreement-it does not matter whether or not it is a part of the agreement in forma, for it becomes if passed in effect and substance a most vital part of it-the confession that after both parties have agreed upon the matter, and after our having said a year ago that we had made up our mind as to what we would do, we have found it necessary to wheel about now and tell the Grand Trunk that we did not know our own minds before but have

awakened now .to the sense of a great injustice and are going to change the agreement entirely and reverse the position we took at our last session. Surely that reflection is sufficient to bring home to the hon. gentleman's mind the very distressing conviction that it is unfair to the intelligence of Parliament that it should be asked to take that humiliating position not only before the people of our own country but before the people of Great Britain as well, who are watching our proceedings at the present time.
Even if there were some merit in the hon. gentleman's suggestion and some consistency in his conduct, surely-having said to the Grand Trunk: " These are our terms, do you agree to them or not? and having received their reply: Yes, we agree to them,"-we are in honour bound to abide by these terms and not present the equivocating, vacillating, twisting position of thinking of something else a year after the event, and suggesting additions after both parties had concurred as to what the exact arrangement should be.
Noty, I had intended to present to the House certain figures, and when opportunity offers I shall avail myself of it. I hope the occasion will come when I can refer to some objections that were raised to the original measure, of which this is an affirmation, principally on the part of the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's (Mr. Fielding), in relation to certain prophecies which he made as to the stocks of the company, and his allegation that by our legislation we were enriching some shareholders. I trust the opportunity will come when I can present to the hon. member certain figures to show him dearly that, in respect of those stocks, these same shareholders who, by his prophecy and by his definite assurance, were being enriched by our legislation to the extent of fifteen, twenty, thirty, and sometimes, according to him, forty millions of dollars, are worse off in reality than they were before the agreement was negotiated, and indeed before legislation was mentioned in this House.


William Stevens Fielding: Give us the figures if you can.


Arthur Meighen: I am prepared to give them if the House and Speaker will bear with me. I can give them right now. I took the trouble to extract from the pages of the very newspaper upon which the hon. gentleman relied, and to which he frequently referred in the course of liis speeches,-the Montreal Star-a summary of the quotations of the various classes of

Grand Trunk stocks for some weeks prior to the 10th day of October, and subsequent to that date; and I have traced them up to now. I shall not delay hon. members by reading all the figures I have before me, but I shall quote sufficient to give the general trend of the market and to show that no money whatever, up to this hour, has been placed in their pockets by any appreciation of the stock, but to show on the contrary that what we said at that time was true, that it was merely a matter of the value of money in the market; and money having risen in the market, those men are poorer to-day than before the negotiations. On the 10th day of September we find that Grand Trunk stock was quoted-4 per cent Debenture guaranteed, this being what Parliament agreed to guarantee by legislation. The quotations in the newspaper to which I have referred to are. September 4, 62J September 6, 62; September 10, 61$; September 19, 62J. On the 14th of October that same stock was quoted at 61J; a little later it went to 65. It never got to 66 in the whole course of that fall. It commenced to recede in the month of November, and on the 12th' day of December it had gone down until it was two points below the first figure I quoted.


William Stevens Fielding: Will the hon. member give any quotation for that stock prior to the introduction of the contract or the announcement that there was to be a contract? Contrast the figures at that time with those even of to-day.


Arthur Meighen: That is what I am doing.


William Stevens Fielding: No.


Arthur Meighen: The 10th of October was the first date when the announcement of the negotiations succeeding was made.


William Stevens Fielding: I remember that in
the discussion that took place quotations were read from the press to show that stock was quoted about 45 to 50-I cannot give the dates-and it has advanced, according to your statement, to 65.


Arthur Meighen: At what date was it 45 to 50?


William Stevens Fielding: I cannot give the dates.


Arthur Meighen: There may have been
a time long before the negotiations when those were the figures, but on the question as to what value the stock was given by reason of the legislation we passed, I am taking the month before the announcement of negotiations was made. Is not that the right 100
month to take? We do not want to take some time, a year or six months or even three months before. On the 10th of September it was 621; on the 17th, 621; on the 18th, 63; on the 19th, 63; on the 13th it was 611; and on the 14th, 65; one day there was this bulge. Three days after the announcement was made in Parliament in regard to the negotiations there was a reduction of about two points in the stock, and the net dxay an advance of three and a half. It went up to 66 on the 21st, and 661 on the 24th, and in the whole course of the fall it never seems to have gone beyond 661 On the 27th it was 661; on the 31st, 65}; on the 3rd of November, 66; on the 5th of November, 66; on the 12th November, 66; on the 20th November, 65; on the 5th December 631; and on the 12th December 60 points, or 21 points below where it was on the 3rd day of September, before the negotiations.


William Stevens Fielding: I have not the dates
at hand, but I remember that the quotations which were given in the House, and the dates showed that prior to the time when this arrangement was undertaken or was expected-because it was in the air- quotations were about 45. .On that comparisons were made between 45 and the possible quotations of a later date.


Arthur Meighen: My hon. friend said that before. I have given him the figures dating back to September.


William Stevens Fielding: My hon. friend has not given the date of my quotation.


Arthur Meighen: Because it does not make any difference.	[DOT]


William Stevens Fielding: Yes, it does.


Arthur Meighen: It depends upon how long you go back. Where there is an increment of value given by Government legislation you have got to go back to what it was just before; it does not matter what it was a year or six months back-


William Stevens Fielding: I was not taking the year before.


Arthur Meighen: -or even three months before, so long as it differs from that up to the time negotiations were completed.
Now to resume my quotations: January 2, 62; January 12, 621; January 20, 621; February 2, 65; February 10, 66; February 24, 66; March 2, 65; March 16, 641; March 26, 63; April 12, 601; April 15, 601. Then on the 19th of April financial writers were urging the holders of Grand Trunk Rail-



way stocks not to throw them away at the present prices. The common stock was then worth 5J and the guaranteed fours, 55, or 71 points below what they were on September 3. Surely it is clear that the hon. gentleman was wholly wrong in arguing his appreciation. Certainly this reduction is in no way due to the legislation. Indeed it was very likely, as we all admitted at the time, that there would be a small, but still appreciable, increase. That was due to the legislation and it could not be avoided. However it was very small indeed, and not sufficient to counteract the depreciation that was due to' the increased value of money; and as a result of the two forces working together those shareholders are today worth millions less than they were when the negotiations were on, and prior to the conclusion of those negotiations. Consequently the impression that hon. gentlemen opposite assiduously sent abroad that we had by this legislation, quoting the words of the hon. member for Shelburne and Queen's, handed out fifteen millions, maybe twenty millions, maybe thirty millions, filched from the pockets, he said, of the people of Canada for these shareholders by this legislation-that impression so scattered abroad by hon. members is wholly false. It is wholly unjust to the people of this country, wholly unjust to the Government of Canada, and wholly unworthy of the hon. gentlemen themselves.
The hon. gentleman predicted that instead of the figures I have given there would be this result: Why, he said, these four per cent guaranteed stocks are now at 70, and they will go to 80 right away, and they will be at 100 shortly. That is how he made up his figures. It shows how cautious hon. members should be especially when they attempt to speak as to the future in regard to matters of this kind. It shows furthermore that that feature of the arrangement -which was most severely criticized by hon. gentlemen opposite at a time when they never dreamed of the subject matter of to-night's debate-that feature of the arrangement so far from being unjust to the Canadian people and a great boom and advantage to the Grand Trunk shareholders, was fair and equitable as between them both and meant no advantage at a" to those shareholders beyond what they were entitled to, and meant no loss nor anything but simple justice' to the people of Canada whom we represent.


Mr. ALPHONSE VERVILLE (St. Denis):: I do not want to let the occasion pass withflir. Meighen.]
out going on record in favour of the amendment. For the good reason that I am not a lawyer 1 am not going to follow the argument of my hon. friend who has just taken his seat. It seemed to me that part of the time he was asking questions of hon. gentlemen on this side probably in the hope of eliciting something upon which to make a point.
I do wish however to consider some of the arguments the Minister of Justice (Mr. Doherty) has indulged in. To my mind his reasoning with respect to the amendment was ineffective: If the men are entitled to the pension-such is the wording of the amendement-they will get it; if they are not entitled to the pension they will not receive it. Where is the harm then in the House making a pronouncement on the subject? This Parliament is the council of the nation, the highest tribunal of the country, and therefore the proper place, from which such a pronouncement should issue. The Minister of Justice tells us that if the men have any rights they can go to the courts. My hon. friend apparently has not yet forgotten that he was' on the judicial bench for fifteen years,, and therefore whenever anything of this kind comes up he is always in favour of a reference to the legal tribunals. He admitted that if there was not a legal obligation there might be a moral obligation with respect to the men's claim. I would remind the House that the Minister of Justice knows what it means to draw a pension. In his case, is there a legal, or a moral obligation involved? To my mind it is questionable whether there is. any moral obligation on his part to draw a pension in view of the position which he occupies in the Government at the present time.
The Minister has also told us that there was plenty of opportunity when the leader df the Opposition occupied the office of Minister of Labour for the men to advance their claim. I have not yet heard that during that time there was any opportunity afforded for putting in a claim, for the very good reason that none of the men had put in that period of service entitling them to a pension. The ex-Minister of Labour has told us tonight-at least I understood it that way-that had this question been put before him when the reinstatement of the men was being argued he would have seen to its adjustment. But the position of affairs was that, there being a pension fund and the men being reinstated after the strike-a strike is legitimate, it is re-

cognized by the law, it is not an illegal affair-they resumed their former status and were entitled to receive their pension.
The argument has been made that at that time the men did not care about the matter of pension. But I know exactly how these questions operate. Workingmen will not bind themselves so that they will be at the mercy of big corporations, or in fact any employer, for the sake of a pension. It seems to me that they are perfectly en-titjed to be restored to their old positions. If since 1910 the then Liberal Government, according to the ex-Minister of Labour (Mr. Mackenzie King), refused to give any help to the Grand Trunk Railway Company on account of that company not doing the right thing by their employees, I think his Government were quite justified in their refusal, and he took the right course in endorsing that refusal. Now that occasion presents itself to help these men have their just claims recognized, I do not see why the Government should decline to put in concrete form what would secure payment of these pensions to those who are really entitled to them.'
As an excuse for not taking such action we are told that the matter will go .before a board of arbitration. Well, in the past, Mr. Speaker, anything pertaining to labour that has gone before any board of arbitration representing organized capital has been treated in such a way that I do not blame these employees, or any other employees, for their lack of confidence in such boards.
As I stated at the outset, Mr. Speaker, I want to put on record my belief that it is absolutely unfair for the Government not to accept the proposed amendment. I am not speaking from the legal standpoint, because if I were a lawyer I would be trying to split hairs after the fashion of my hon. friend (Mr. Meighen) who has just taken his seat. If the Government does not accept this amendment, the public at large and the working people in particular will infer that the Government is afraid to guarantee to these men their claims in connection with the pension fund, and that it prefers to protect the big interests against the just claims of these men. I would not like that impression to go abroad, and 1 therefore point out to the Government that their only way of salvation is to accept this amendment.
It must be borne in mind that whenever men are returned to their positions after a strike under the terms stated here tonight, it is well understood that such re-100i
turn means everything connected with their positions. This is not a technical question of law, it is purely a question of the wording of the agreement, and I can see no grounds for any other interpretation than that which the men placed on the wording of the agreement under which they agreed to terminate the strike. Therefore I want to go on record as being in favour of this amendment, which, I repeat, is but a fair and just recognition of the claims of the men-; and I also want to warn the Government that unless they wish the impression to go broadcast throughout the Dominion that they are going to favour big corporations rather than do evenhanded justice to the workingmen of this country, the best course for them to follow is to accept this-amendment.


John Hampden Burnham: eo far as the men are concerned, it is unanimously agreed by both sides of this House that they must be paid by somebody. Therefore if the fight is to be continued, let it be continued and not be befogged-let it be continued as a fight between the pockets-of this country and the pockets of the Grand Trunk. That is the question to be decided, because there is no other question before the House. The men are to be paid by somebody,:-that is agreed upon; and the Government is just as strongly in favour of that proposition as any one can possibly be.


Hugh Boulton Morphy: My views have been already given, Mr. Speaker, on this question, and I am very strongly in favour of the men receiving equitable treatment in some way. But I do complain a little about the hon. leader of the Opposition attempting, as I would say,, to shirk responsibility. He was the man in charge of the negotiations between the company and the men at the time this trouble arose, he put himself in the midst of the difficulties, and he has confessed to-night that he ~was present at the drafting of the agreement,-which is pretty close contact with the situation. If he was present at that drafting he was a part and parcel of that agreement so far as his intermediary work was concerned, and he certainly cannot escape responsibility for what he failed to bring about.
What did he fail to bring about? The two things over which this discussion has arisen: First,, the pensions of the men which he says were spoken of at the time and dealt with as a separate matter. I ask him why those pensions were dealt with as a separate matter. It was one of the main rights among the many rights that tlie men claimed. It is all very well for him to say that the matter was spoken of by the men as of no account, but to-day he speaks of it as being considered by the men to be of great account. Where is his statement that the men have made it of such great account? Were they the same men who told him in 1910 that the matter of pensions was of no account? We have the hon. gentleman's statement, and we are bound to take it, but it is absolutely unsubstantiated by any outside evidence of pressure being brought to bear upon him, either by the men who then -said pensions were of no account or by the men whom he pretends, voluntarily I believe,, to represent to-day. The matter of pensions, therefore, is left out of the agreement which the hon. gentleman sat by and saw drafted. That

is one thing that was left out, through his supineness and neglect, I would -say: left out through the carelessness with which he approached the serious matter in. hand, or on account of some other influence than that of the men.
, Then, what is the next thing that is left out? The date within which the men should be reinstated. The most humiliating thing I have heard for many day is the confession of the leader of the Opposition who comes into this House and says: I was at the drafting of that agreement; I was pa!rt and parcel of it: my whole soul was stirred with a desire to bring about an agreement that would be full and fair and complete; but I left out a most important thing-the date at which the men should be reinstated, I allowed the railway auhorities to put in that Bill abstract words to the effect that the men should be reinstated or put back as soon as possible. "As soon as possible", what a shilly-shally, lacking-in-executive, abstract way to draw an agreement! What a confession for an hon. gentleman to make who was present at the drafting of the agreement and who did not intervene in an attempt to make its provisions more specific ! Then, on the side, my hon. friend says: But I got from Mr. Wainwright and other gentlemen, not their agreement, not their undertaking under seal, but their word that I would be entitled to telegraph to the men that the phrase <as soon as possible meant that they would be taken back within ninety days. This also is left out, and at the eleventh hour my hon. friend, feeling that his efforts on that occasion resulted in such a mess, and perhaps with a view of trying to reinstate himself with the men and bring himself back into their good graces, springs up here with a claptrap resolution seeking to curry favour with the men whose interests he absolutely ignored, and failed properly to represent.
Now, what is the resolution that he asks us to support? He asks that a clause be added to the Bill to this effect:
Any right or any interest of any employee of the Grand Trunk Railway Company existing in the pension system prior to the strike of the company's employees which occurred in July, 1910, is hereby declared not to have been affected by the said strike or any circumstance or condition arising out of or in connection therewith.	,
Now, what does that mean? The hon. gentleman argues that the whole thing is affected by an agreement which impliedly was to reinstate the men in their former positions with all their pensions and all

the other conditions of their employment. Yet I am asked to support a resolution which declares exactly the opposite, because the agreement was a condition or circumstance arising out of the strike. We have to take the agreement as it is. In it pensions are not provided for. I myself think that they are impliedly provided for. Then I accept the view of the Minister of Justice that when this board of arbitration gets seated and becomes seized of the issue of valuation, he'will make every effort to see that this claim is properly brought before that forum. I assume that the men will have every opportunity of presenting their claims. If the claim is found to be a legal one, then the men will get justice by that tribunal. The country is pledged to justice; this House is pledged to justice, either from a legal or from an equitable point of view. If the arbitrators find that there is no legal claim, the Minister of Justice says that the matter will be taken up by Parliament. I have already had occasion to say, and I say it again, that this Parliament is the highest forum of equity in this Dominion, and if the board of arbitrators find that they cannot deal with this matter, Parliament, with all the parties before it and after proper consideration, will have to deal with it. But the company have no right to ask to be relieved because the Government is taking over all the assets and properties of the system. I am not frightened by the cry which the leader of the Opposition raises to-night that it is the shareholders of the Grand Trunk Railway Company who should pay. Probably it is, but if we are not able to compel them to pay and the arbitration cannot work the matter out, surely this House is big enough, and the country is big enough, to recognize the equitable right which these men undoubtedly have. I do not believe in splitting hairs. I did not follow with much approval the argument about the words "put back" or "reinstated,"-they mean the same thing to me. The clear intention of the agreement, so poorly drawn, was that the strike was to be an end of all trouble and that the men were to go back to their former positions and status in the employ of the company. In other words, the full intention of the agreement was that the men were to be reinstated and to be given possession of all the rights which they had previously enjoyed. "Under these circumstances, and on account of the peculiar wording of the agreement, I prefer to support the attitude taken by the Government. The Minister of the Interior (Hon. Mr. Meiglien)
claims that there is a legal right. The Minister of Justices promises to support the attitude which I wish to see adopted in connection with the claim put forward- an attitude favourable to the men before the board of arbitration. I prefer to trust, the Government and its perfectly clear-cut declarations, rather than the eleventh-hour attempt of the leader of the Opposition by pretend to be the friend of men whose interests he so flagrantly failed to safeguard at a time when he was responsible for the proper wording of a contract which should have been clear and specific,-a contract so carelessly drawn as to create the doubts which have brought on this discussion today.


William Stevens Fielding: Mr. Speaker, I do not rise for the purpose of participating in the general discussion, I had no intention of speaking oil the motion; I simply want to make a brief comment with regard to the little controversy that the Minister of the Interior (Hon. Mr. Meighen) and I had a few minutes ago concerning the quotations for certain stock, known as four per rent guaranteed stock, prior to the matte1' engaging the attention of the Government, and the later quotations. The period that has since passed has been a period of severe financial depression when all financial conditions have been Unfavourable. There is the further thought that we must have in mind, namely, that this transaction is not yet complete. The Government guarantee does not rest on that 4 per cent guaranteed stock; it is only in expectation that the market has been affected; the full fruition of the advance has yet to come.
The point of difference between the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Meighen) and myself, is this, that the stock has gone to 65 and 66 and so forth, and he has intimated in effect that that is a mere trifle, a few points beyond the quotations of the earlier times. He has made his comparisons between the 65 and 66 of recent days and quotations of an earlier date, which, without being specific, he gave us to understand were only a trifle less. With his permission, I interrupted him to say that my recollection, on which I based the argument, was that the four per cent stock had been 45, and that the contrast should be made between the 45 and whatever increased value the stock had. I have since then had an opportunity to turn up Hansard, and I find on page 1074, October 16, 1919, speaking of this guaranteed stock, I said:

Now that stock has some value. It was ' quoted in the London market not very long : ago-I am so informed; I have not been able to prove that statement by reference, but I believe it is correct-at 45.
I remember the circumstance, that a brother member assured me that he had seen the quotation at 45; but as I did not have the quotation before me, I was careful to say that I gave the figure at 45 because I was so informed; I believed it to be correct. and I am satisfied now it was correct. I made this quotation from one of the London financial papers:
There has been a sharp burst in Grand Trunk issues on the notification that the matter in dispute is likely to be submitted to arbitration-
That was' long before we toad the document submitted to us here. They had knowledge or impression of it in England although we were not permitted to know if it here*. When I said that from memory I madeythat quotation at 45 and based my argument on that, the minister saiid that he was not concerned at what it might have been years before. This was, however, only a few weeks or days before. Moreover, I find that the minister himself, in, reply to my argument, made a quotation just a little above 45, and yet he said that I would have to go back years for a quotation of that kind. I quote from the minister him-settf as reported on page 1024 of Hansard :
Mr. Meighen: (Resuming): I was referring to certain quotations in the London Times. I find that on September 18, Grand Trunk common stock was quote at 9 7/8, 9 15/16, and so on,-
We are not dealing with the common stock.
(
-that the 4 per cent guaranteed stock was quoted at 49}, 49g, *50}.
That was after the agreement bad taken place*, so* that white the minister said that I would have to go back years for that quotation, he is answered by his own words .as shown' in* the debate.
Mr- D. D. McKENZIE (Gape Breton North 'and Victoria) : I listened with a great deal of interest .and attention to the legal gladiators who were dealing with this question to-night, and I imagine that the pensioners who are looking for their money, and their wives and children*, are not concerned so much about the hair-splitting and clever repartee that we may get from the leading lawyers of the Government as they are in, getting their money. I do not think it is an answer to the labouring classes of this country, whose interests are at stake and who look to this Parliament for their
LMr. Fielding.]
rights and protection, for the Government to say:	Oh, some years back, ten* years
ago, somebody did not make the agreement as clear as it might possibly be, and consequently yon have no rights. I wish particularly to bring to the notice of the House to-night a resolution of the men involved and particularly concerned in this matter, a resolution which was submitted to the Government in May of last* year. The stock in tirade of the Government to-night, of the Minister of Justice (Mr.' Doherty) and of the Minister of the Interior, (Mr. Meighen) is that we on this side of the House slept on our rights if we were representing those men, and their claims were not placed sufficiently before Parliament, That cannot bold water for one moment in view of a resolution passed in May, 1919, at a meeting ait which some hundred delegates were present. These are the facta which the railwaymen submitted to the Government in May, 1919, when the Grand Trunk acquisition Act was not drafted, when there was not a word about it:
Whereas we believe Parliament, though it did not so provide in the Act, surely intended that the said Pension Fund would be administered by the Pension Department of the Railways fairly and without discrimination ; and, Whereas the said company, through its Pension Department has debarred its employees form the benefits of the said Pension Fund because they participated in a strike of the Conductors, Brakemen, and Yardmen, on the road in 1910, and,
Whereas, it is well known that the said strike was the result of the unreasonable attitude assumed by -its then management, in refusing to grant the employees increased wages and improved working conditions based on the standard wage and conditions on other Canadian railways, and.
Whereas, it is well known that the transportation brotherhoods, including .the Order of Railway Conductors, do not strike until all other means of settlement have been exhausted, and,
Whereas, the employees who participated in the strike of 1910 had the sympathy of the citizens generally and especially those citizens located along the said railway, and,
Whereas, tfie Government then in power effected a settlement, and it was agreed among other things that the employees would return to work and resume their standing in the service and their seniority rights held by them prior to the strike, as though they had been continuously in the service, and,
Whereas, the company has since the said agreement deprived the said employees who have retired from the service on account of the age limit from the benefits of the Pension Fund, alleging that their participation in the strike in 1910, broke their continuity of service with the company, and,
Whereas, many conductors and other train men that had served the company and the public faithfully and continuously up to fifty-three (53) years, and having reached the age limit have been retired from the service, and for the

reason above stated debarred from the pension which they so sorely need on account of the low wages in effect on this road prior to the strike of 1910, and,
Whereas, the accredited representatives or the Order of Railway Conductors and Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen having appealed to the management of the Grand Trunk Railway, and also to its Board of Directors domiciled in England, and its Chairman, Mr. Smithers, for the restoration of the said pensions without success, and in pursuance of the policy ot these organizations to exhaust all legitimate efforts to reach a peaceful adjustment of all matters affecting the interests of their membership, therefore be it
Resolved: that we respectfully petition the Government and Parliament of Canada- to use their good offices to the end that the Grand Trunk Railway Company s Pension Department shall recede from its unjust attitude, and that in future it shall administer the Pension Fund of that company fairly and without, discrimination, and that it shall pay to its em-Dloyees all arrears of pension due them, ana,
Whereas, we are advised that our Government is desirous of acquiring the Grand Trunk railway and incorporating it as part of our National Railway system, and is negotiating to that end, therefore, be it further,
Resolved, that we respectfully petition our Government not to conclude said negotiations for the purchase of Ahe said Grand Trunk railway without providing for the protection of the pension interests of the employees concerned,
and be it further,	.	.	.
Resolved, that we furnish a copy of these resolutions to the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Borden, and to the following ministers of departments, and members of Parliament, name
ly;__The Honourable Minister of Railways, .T.
D Reid [DOT] the Hon. Minister of Labour, G. D. Robertson, and J. E. Armstrong, Esq., M.P., Chairman of the Railway Committee of the House of Commons.
That is the resolution that was submitted to the Prime Minister ('Sir Robert Borden) and to several other ministers in June ot last year, and, I presume, to the hon. member for West Lambton, (Mr. Pardee) representing that part of the country in which these men live. Is there any excuse for the Government not dealing with this question when the facts were so forcefully and clearly set forth before they started to negotiate for the taking over of this road? I think it is mere trifling to say that because ten years ago something happened which perhaps might have been avoided by a more conclusive agreement, we should not now' deal with this matter. We are now dealing with this corporation for the last time. It is being -wound up, as it were, it will soon go out of existence and vanish into thin air. When that opportunity is now before us, are we simply going to say that we will have nothing to do with the matter, and will give no remedy to these men, but will fall back on something which might have been done some years ago by people who had no power to do these things
by reason of the fact that the Government of which the Minister of Labour of that day was a member went out of power. We are told that this, that, and the other thing will be done. This question was before Parliament a few days ago, on the 12th of April, I believe, when the hon. member for North Simcoe (Mr. Currie) introduced his resolution. Everybody agreed upon the facts. No one questioned the facts as set forth by the hon. member for Simcoe and by the hon. memJber for West Lambton. I had sense enough to see that there wbuld be legal difficulties in the way. This claim arose in 1910, and the statute of_ limitations applies. The very moment this claim was raised before the board of arbitrators that is to he appointed, some lawyer representing ithe Grand Trunk would ask: When did this happen? The lawyer representing the claim of the men would have to admit that it happened in 1910. Then the Grand Trunk lawyer would point out to the legal tribunal that in the province of Ontario., where the claim arose, there was a statute of limitations, and that as the claim arose ten years ago no remedy could be given by the board, that the matter was out of their jurisdiction. Suppose the tribunal says: No, this is a moral claim, and we will disregard the statute of limitations and give judgment in favour of the men. There is a provision in this agreement for an appeal, not only to the Supreme Court of Canada, but to the Privy Council where the Grand Trunk would be at home with its friends; and I would ask any hon. member of this House how much show this finding of the hoard would have which was contrary to the statute of limitations, when it came before the Privy Council, and it was pointed out that moneys were taken from Englishmen which they were entitled to, and taken because, fors'ooth, there was a moral claim which was entirely barred by the statute of limitations in the province in which 'the claim arose. I submitted that the other day, and I was pushed aside by the hon. member for Simcoe as making an argument out of whole cloth. I did not get much sympathy from the Minister of Justice. He thought that the board could deal with this matter. I suggested, and it appears in Hansard, that the whole question should be submitted to a small committee of this House, where the Grand Trunk representatives and the representatives of the men would have an opportunity of appearing and telling their story, arid upon the committee's report such _ legislation could be passed as would be justified by

the facts submitted. That suggestion was also pushed aside by the Minister of Justice and the hon. member for Simcoe, as something that was not at all necessary. Now we are down to the point where there is no remedy at all. The Arbitration Board can do nothing at all because they have no jurisdiction, the claim is out of date. But in equity and fairness and honesty it still exists. Those who are familiar with the doctrine of the statute of limitations know that it is not the debt that is wiped out, but the remedy; the statute does not kill the debt, it debars the right of action. What I said the other day, and still say, is that Parliament should step in and wipe away these technicalities of the statute of limitations and other bars to the rights of these men, and legislate in such a way that their rights will be restored regardless of any statute of limitations. If the facts are admitted, what stands in the way of doing justice to these men? If the facts are not admitted let this whole business stand. There is no great rush to get it through today, and a committee of this House could be appointed to ascertain the facts and report to this House, upon which report legislation could be based doing justice to all concerned. If the men are not entitled to this money there is not a member here who is anxious to give it to them; if they are entitled to it, they should have it, and no autocratic conduct of any concern such as the Gran,d Trunk should be allowed to deprive them of their legitimate rights.
, The Act creating this fund was passed by this House in 1907. If it was conducted properly there must be a large accumulation of money in this fund. I am quite familiar with funds of this kind, because in our part of the country our workingmen in the mines and steel works contribute to funds of this kind, and in time large sums of money accumulate. If there is any change from one form of constitution to another, or from one form of association to another, the moneys so accumulated are passed over to the association that is to continue. I think my question of the Minister of Justice to-night, whether the fund which has been accumulating since 1907 was intact and would be passed over to the Government, was a very proper one. If it is intact, the Government has a perfect right to take the responsibilities and the liabilities in connection with that fund, but if there is no fund at, all, if the money has been utilized as it was coming in by the Grand Trunk, what right have we to pay their liabilities? ^We should take care that before 
the Grand Trunk railway passes out of their hands, and we receive the property as being clear from debt and all liabilities, everything is settled and the mortgage wiped out. It is just as if a man were buying a house with a mortgage on it and was told:	Oh, well, the man from whom you
bought this house should have paid off this mortgage; he should have given you a clear title. The Government says: Never mind the mortgage, we will take over the property with the mortgage; we have lots of money and we can pay off the mortgage, and we will pay just the same amount for the property as if there was no mortgage on it. That is the attitude of the Government. But they must remember they are dealing with the money of the people, and there is no justification for paying any liabilities which the Grand Trunk should pay themselves. This is the last opportunity which we shall have to deal with this matter, and I submit that the rights of labour-and I have no business to call them labour because it is the rights of men who were members of an association , that we are discussing. It might be hinted that I am playing to Labour, but I am doing nothing of the kind. These men belonged to a society, call it what you will, and they are entitled to certain moneys which have been very improperly kept from them. This is the only tribunal in the world that has any jurisdictionto give the necessary remedy. Do not let us quibble over words; do not let us say:	You
should have done this; or: you should have done that, some years ago. The railway men in these societies care nothing about these quibbles; they are entitled to certain amounts of money, and this House can see that they get what they are entitled to, because we are taking over the property, and nothing should stand in the way of doing justice all round as between the company and the men. I hope sincerely that, before this property passes, these moneys that are due will be paid to the last cent.
Mr. F. N. MeCREA (Sherbrooke): Perhaps it might be a presumption on my part to criticise the statements of the Minister of the Interior (Mr. Meighen), since I am not a lawyer. But I do not quite agree with his views ! He read extensively from Hansard of 1910 in an endeavour to show that the attitude of the leader, of the Opposition (Mr. Mackenzie King) at that time was quite at variance with his Ipresent stand. I fail to see that there is any inconsistency in the course which the leader of the Opposit-

ion has followed. The trouble occurred between the Grand Trunk and its employees, and the leader of the Opposition, then Minister of Labour, was entrusted with the task of effecting a settlement, which was finally brought about after considerable discussion and negotiation and after many interviews. The men agreed to return to work, and the company undertook to reinstate them, not as new men but as old employees. They were to resume the positions they held prior to the strike. Hansard of that time indicates that nothing was said at that time about pensions, but the fact, remains that the men agreed to return to work and the company agreed to take them back on their old standing. I-may be wrong, but I am firmly of the opinion that when the Company reinstated the men as old employees the men resumed the exact position in which they were before the strike in regard to pensions and everything else; and when no specific stipulation was made that they were being taken back on any new basis it cannot be contended now that they were not, and are not now, entitled to. pensions as if nothing had occurred. Some of the employees were taken back and some were not, but they have never ceased to complain that the Grand Trunk Compkny did not live up to their part of the agreement. The attitude of the leader of the Opposition today is that the company failed to live up to their agreement, and no quibbling will satisfy the men. Lawyers may be able to interpret things to suit themselves, but I see no difference between the attitude of the leader of the Opposition today and his attitude in 1910, and I see no reason whatever why the employees, taken back on the understanding that they were resuming their old status, are not fully justified in claiming whatever privileges that status carried with it.
The Minister endeavoured, to show that the Government had made a good bargain in taking over the Grand Trunk, and he argues that the date at which the stock should be valued is the date preceding the passage of the Bill through the House to acquire the railway. I think that if there was any stock on the market at that time it was difficult to ascertain what value it did have, until some element of the Government and their friends thought they would take over the Grand Trunk. Some emissaries of the Government went over from this country wirepulling or negotiating, and the stockholders of the Grand Trunk were led to believe that the road was going to be taken over on favourable conditions. That
might have been two, or three, or four months before the Bill was brought into the House, but whenever the sockholders got an inkling that the Government of Canada was prepared to take over the road on conditions that would be favourable to them, that moment the stock began to go up. The Minister says that on October 10 the stock was selling on the market at 66 or 65. The minister, I presume, is aware that there is an immensity of very good securities at all times selling on the market that bring a very much higher rate of interest than four per cent. No doubt he is also aware that call money and many other investments have been very high. I would ask him this question: If the railway still remained in the hands of the Grand Trunk, and there were no prospects of the Government coming to the rescue and taking it over, what wouldT be the condition of affairs? With their deficit for the last financial year which we have reason to believe exists- for although we have asked for a statement and cannot get it, we have reason to believe that the Grand Trunk Company for the year 1919 will have a deficit to show- if the road were still in the hands of the company with the possibility of that deficit, and with all kinds of security, gilt-edged and other kinds being offered, bearing twice the interest at which these securities are selling, I should like to know what the minister thinks the Grand Trunk stock would be worth to day.
, Mr. MEIGHEN: I might tell my hon. friend this, that before the agreement was entered into the common stock was. worth 9J; to-day it is worth 5i.


Mr. McCREA:: When was it worth 9J?


Arthur Meighen: A month before the legislation was introduced into Parliament, the common stock was worth 9f and on the. ,19th April it was 5i. I doubt, after the last slump, whether it is worth anything to-day, so it could not be worth much less no matter what happened.
, Mr. McCREA:	Aside from what the
stock was worth with the likelihood of the Government taking the road over, if the Government had never taken it over and the road was still in the hands of the stockholders without any prospect of anybody coming to their relief, I think the minister .would find that stock would be a great deal lower than it is to-day. Undertaking to prove that the Government have made a good bargain by the fact that the stock has not gone up is not a very good argument.

It may be a lawyer's way of trying to prove the country has made a good bargain; but no man with any business experience will accept that as a very good argument for, showing that the bargain was a good one.


Arthur Meighen: What I said was that the common stock could not get any lower.


Edgar Nelson Rhodes: The hon. gentleman has exhausted his right to speak.
i Mr. MEIGHEN:	The hon. gentleman
asked me a question, to which I replied.
The House divided upon the amendment, Mr. Mackenzie King, which was negatived on the following division:

Messrs.
Allan,
Anderson,
Argue,
Armstrong (Lambton) Arthurs,
Ballantyne,
Ball,
Blair,
Blake,
Bol'ton,
Bonn ell,
Bowman,

Hay,
Henders,
Keefer,
Lang,
Loggie,
Long,
Mackie (Edmonton), Mackie (Renfrew), MaoNutt,
McGibbon (Muskoka) McGregor,
Mclsaac,
Boyce,	'
Brien,
Buchanan,
Burnham,
Butts,
Calder,
Casselman,
Chaplin,
Charters,
Clark (Bruce),
Clarke (Wellington), Clements,
Cockshutt,
Cooper,
Cowan,
Cronyn,
Cro there,
Crowe,
Cruise,
Davidson,
Davis,
Douglas ( Strathcona), Douglas (Cape Breton S. and Rich.),
Elkin,
Foster (York),
Fraser,
Fulton,
Glass,
Gould,
Griesbach,
Guthrie,
Halladay,
Harold,
Maharg,
Martin,
Meighen,
Merner,
Middlebro,
Morphy,
Mowat,
Munson,
Myers,
Nesbitt,
Nicholson
(Queens, P.E.I.), Porter,
Redman,
Reid (Mackenzie), Richardson,
Rowell,
Shaw,
Simpson,
Smith,
Stacey,
Steele,
S tewa rt (Ham ilton ), Thompson (Weyburn), Thompson (Hastings), Thompson (Yukon), Thomson (Qu'Appelle), Tolmle,
Tremain,
Tweedie,
Wigmore,
Wi Lson ( Wen two rth), Wilson (Saskatoon), Wright.-90.


Henri Sévérin Béland: Mr. Speaker, I was paired with the hon. Minister of Customs (Mr. Burrell). Had I voted I would have voted for the amendment.


William Stevens Fielding: I was paired with the right hon. the Prime Minister (Sir Robert Borden). Had I voted I would have voted for the amendment.
Mr. MeCREA: I was paired with the hon. member for Haldimand (Mr. Lalor). Had I voted I would have voted for the amendment.


Mr. LESAGE:: I was paired with the hon. member for Fort William and Rainy River (Mr. Manion). Had I voted I would have voted for the amendment.


Charles Joseph Doherty: I was paired with the hon. member for Bonaventure (Mr. Marcil). Had I voted I would have voted against the amendment.


Mr. GREEN:: I was paired with the hon. member for Victoria and Albert (Mr. White). Had I voted I would have voted against the amendment.

(The list of Pains is furnished by the Chief Whips.)
Messrs.
Borden, Sir Robert, Foster, Sir George, White, Sir Thomas, Reid, Hon. J. D.,
MoMaster,
Fielding,
Jacobs,
Kennedy, W. C.,

Burrell,
Mewburn,
Doherty,
McQuarrie,
Lal'or,
Kemp, Sir Edward, Charlton,
Man ion,
Tudhope,
Green,
Wallace,
Whidden,
Motion agreed versed, and Bill passed.
On
House
Beland,

Mareil (Bonaventure), Brouillard,
McCrea,
Fournier,
McOoig,	.
Lesage,
Proulx,
White (Victoria), Dech&ne,
Etihier.
to on same division reread the third time, and
On motion of Right Hon. Mr. Doherty the adjourned at 12.30 a.m. (Friday.)
Friday, April 23, 1920.